The president of a slaughterhouse went to Washington this week to testify about what exactly he was injecting into the foodstream. Not good things, as it turns out

The president of a slaughterhouse at the heart of the largest meat recall denied under oath on Wednesday, but then grudgingly admitted, that his company had apparently introduced sick cows into the hamburger supply.

He then tried to minimize the significance.

The executive, Steve Mendell of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company of Chino, Calif., said, “I was shocked. I was horrified. I was sickened,” by video that showed employees kicking or using electric prods on “downer” cattle that were too sick to walk, jabbing one in the eye with a baton and using forklifts to push animals around.

The video was taken by an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States. One tape showed a worker using a garden hose to try to squirt water up the nose of a downed cow, a technique that Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who conducted the hearing where Mr. Mendell testified, referred to as waterboarding.

Testifying before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Mendell, who appeared only after being subpoenaed, assured lawmakers that despite his lack of knowledge about conditions at the plant, sick animals were not slaughtered for food, so no safety issue existed.

But Mr. Mendell retracted the statement when shown a second video in which a “downer” cow was shocked and abused by workers trying to move it to the “kill box,” then finally shot with a bolt gun and dragged by a chain to the processing area.

When Mr. Mendell told the committee he was unaware of the abuses, Mr. Stupak asked him, “What’s your curiosity, as president and C.E.O. of the company you’re responsible for?”

Mr. Mendell replied that after he had seen the first video, he concluded that “it was a regulatory violation, for sure, it was inhumane treatment, for sure,” but that he did not believe it was a food safety issue until he saw the second video on Wednesday.

Mr. Stupak asked if one could conclude from the video that the cow dragged into the killing area had gone into the food supply.

“That would be logical, sir,” Mr. Mendell replied.

Mr. Mendell said he had asked for a copy of the second video but it had been refused. The president of the Humane Society, Wayne Pacelle, said, however, that the video had been on the group’s Web site since Feb. 19.

It gets better

Of the 143 million pounds of beef that were recalled, about 50 million pounds went to school lunch programs or federal programs for the poor or elderly, Mr. Stupak said. But the recall covered all the meat produced for two years, Mr. Mendell said, so most of it had already been eaten.

The biggest threat from “downer” cattle is mad cow disease. The chairman of the full committee, Representative John D. Dingell, also of Michigan, said the incubation period for the human form could be 20 years.

A little background on the Bush administration's proud history with mad cow disease here and here and here and here, although not if you haven't eaten

But wait. It gets better than that

After the testimony, Mr. Mendell’s lawyer Asa Hutchinson, a former member of Congress from Arkansas and former under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that Mr. Mendell still did not have all the facts about the events shown in the videotapes.

That would be former impeachment manager Asa Hutchinson, a man charged with protecting the homeland from all enemies domestic and foreign, even the really little ones that turn your brain into swiss cheese.

It's instructive, I think, to see what Mr. Hutchinson had to say about telling the truth when the issue at stake was covering up consensual sex rather than the potential transmission of a fatal disease to hundreds of millions of those citizens least able to protect themselves

On the impeachment that shut the peoples' business down while we pondered in pornographic detail the issue of consensual sex

The purpose of this process is to examine the public trust, and if it is breached, to repair it,'' said Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican from Arkansas.

On saying The Thing That Is Not True under oath

On the contrary, I have a great deal of trouble in lowering the standards to say to future presidents, "Lying under oath, no matter how often and no matter how intentional, is considered acceptable conduct."

Well, woops.

At least there are only lives at stake.