Pittsburgh paper profiles hometown boy, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, saying he steers a middle road

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, 61, right, has come a long way from his "tumultuous adoptive household" in the rural Pennsylvania town of Squirrel Hill, reports Tracie Mauriello of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He rose to governor of Iowa, briefly ran for president in 2007 and was co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008. He never thought he'd ever be chosen to be secretary because of his general opposition to President Obama politically.

Mauriello chronicles Vilsack's life and political career, summing up the latter with this: "Vilsack's faced his share of criticism from the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association, which says he's too lenient on factory farmers and producers of genetically modified crops. The conservative American Farm Bureau, meanwhile, has criticized him for attempts to increase regulations without scientific proof that genetic modification is harmful. 'I would say [Vilsack] has done a pretty good job going down that line,' said Dale Moore, chief of staff to three agriculture secretaries under the Bush administration and now is American Farm Bureau executive director of public policy. 'If you've got both sides equally nervous and irritated with you, then you're probably doing a good job.' " (Read more)