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Its time for the second installment of Pen’s “Get to Know Your Cabinet Members!” We kick this one off with: Secretary of Agriculture: Mike Johanns!

Mike is a former Governor of Nebraska, and has also been a mayor and member of city and county councils. He has a strong Catholic background and spent his formative years on his parents dairy farm. Johanns has the dubious honor of being the first recipient of the “Burning Times” award during his tenure as Governor. He received this award for his support of the controversial “March for Jesus Day” and for declaring June 19th, 1999 as “Back to the Bible Day” in Nebraska. When asked if he would support similar legislation for the Wicca community Johanns replied “What is Wicca?” allegedly followed by “Something that I personally disagree with, I’m not going to sign it.” This is also the same reason he has given for refusing to sign anything that could be seen as endorsing the gay and lesbian community in Nebraska. Johanns carpools to work each morning with his wife, Stephanie. Stephanie works in the telecommunications industry, and also handles all of her husbands email for him. He doesn’t have a checking account, so any of his weekly purchases are done in case. He is honestly excited by his work, and has even been found to describe coming across the USDA food pyramid on a box of cereal as ‘cool’. He is a proponent for technology and science in the Ag industry (such as food tracking and labelling), but publicly denounces many changes (such as food tracking and labelling) if he believes they’ll hurt the little farmer. Unfortunately for Johanns this apparent paradox has resulted in no small amount of criticism following outbreaks of food borne illness over the last several years.

Thats about all there is to say about this gentleman’s past. He has strictly conservative and devout viewpoints but he seems to practice what he preaches. In my opinion that is quite a rare trait for a cabinet member. Dont let that fool you though, he is intolerant of many other viewpoints and still a bit sheltered with regard to other religious views despite his well travelled history. Plus, he is still a Bush lackey. He will defend actions that dont seem to make sense by referencing the president in his argument. For example: Labelling what country your meat comes from will hurt small farmers somehow, the President says so! Here is Mr. Johanns random quote: Food safety involves everybody in the food chain. Well Punned, Mr. Johanns.