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describe meat residue from the previous day stuck on equipment; old meat on the tines of forks used to mix meat products; liquid filled with “unknown black foreign particles (possibly from the overhead cooling units)” dripping through a hole in plastic covering six hundred pounds of meat; water splashing from the floor onto food products; workers washing their boots and allowing water to splash onto food and food-preparation surfaces; condensation on ducts and pipes above the food-processing area. One hundred sixteen pages of USDA inspectors’ reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act include many similar violations during the year before the recall. In the reports, Erthal repeatedly warns of condensate that was contaminating food and food-processing equipment.

The documents covering a period before Wampler’s October 2002 recall refer to dozens of earlier violations of USDA guidelines. Water from the floor splashing onto the food products was a red flag. Erthal said he worried about the backed-up drains and standing water in the plant. When the USDA finally got around to taking samples for Listeria, the strain of bacteria that cost Frank Niemtzow his life was found in the drains. It was a little late. Tons of ready-to-eat chicken and turkey had already been processed and shipped, and most of it had already been eaten.

It didn’t have to happen. The rules the Bush administration killed during its first week in office would have required regular testing for Listeria—and quick action if it was detected.

When Inspector Erthal finally went public with his claims in November 2002, Elsa Murano’s response was to chill, if not kill, the messenger. Murano said the inspector was making “serious allegations.”

“I need to know, frankly, if what he’s saying is right, is true, is accurate, then we need to correct that and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Murano said. She added that instead of going public, instead of contacting California congressman Henry Waxman and instead of asking for help from the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, Erthal should have gone to the USDA’s Office of Inspector General. “All of our employees have available to them the Office of Inspector General, and Mr. Erthal didn’t do that,” Murano said.

Wrong.

Erthal spent two frustrating years filing reports that were ignored. Exactly one year before the recall, he pleaded with the agency to file an enforcement notice. Once the notice is filed, USDA inspectors can be pulled from the plant and that shuts the plant down. Initially Erthal was rebuffed by his colleague on the day shift and by day-shift managers from Wampler. He had a stack of critical reports hand-delivered to the district office in Philadelphia, but they were intercepted. Finally, he showed the reports to a circuit manager who e-mailed the district office requesting an enforcement order that would give Wampler three days to clean up its plant or be temporarily shut down. A month later the USDA finally took a look at Wampler. “We found pretty extensive Listeria throughout the facility,” said USDA spokesman Steve Cohen. Listeria monocytogenes.

You might think Murano would give the whistle-blower a commendation and urge other inspectors to come forward when they find problems.

There was no commendation.

“I’m a peon inspector,” Erthal told us. “They’re a little bit above the law. They don’t have to pay attention to a peon inspector. You know who Bo Pilgrim is? Bo Pilgrim is personal friends with George Bush. He helped finance his presidential campaign. He gave him millions of dollars.” (Actually it was hundreds of thousands.)

The federal bureaucracy is huge and has a complex management hierarchy. But bureaucrats know who the CEO is. Vince Erthal may overestimate Bo Pilgrim’s influence, but he knows about his relationship with the Boss. That’s the way cash-and-carry government works.

Erthal and other inspectors also knew the institutional culture changed when George and Laura moved into the White House.* Bush’s top food-safety appointee at the USDA doesn’t even believe in testing,