Almost any day of the week in Washington, DC you can go to a public hearing—and if you’re lucky you’ll be entertained at the sight of some harried public servant squirming under the relentless questioning of our elected representatives. Last week’s intended victim was Andrew von Eschenbach, head of that beleaguered agency, the US Food and Drug Administration.

Von Eschenbach appeared before Senate and House appropriations subcommittees to defend the proposed 2008 FDA budget. On Wednesday I wandered down to the capitol—source of straitjacket dull fashion and casualty of a recent impertinent smoking ban, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi—to check out the action at the House.

I have to admit that I should have taken better notes. But every time von Eschenbach opened his mouth I wanted to fall asleep; he must have used the word “system” about 18 times and “process” at least 22.

Still, I woke up when representatives began grilling von Eschenbach about news reports that he planned to cut funding for the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health—ostensibly in retaliation for the office’s support for over-the-counter “Plan B” contraception.

He called the reports, “inaccurate.” but he failed to assuage the committee, saying, “I haven’t made that decision yet.” Congress will have to wait till March 15 to learn if funding will be retained. I must admit I was a bit disappointed: He obviously wasn’t squirming enough.

Von Eschenbach also faced a phalanx of representatives concerned about food safety. He could not say when a long-overdue report on this summer’s spinach outbreak would appear, had no opinion on whether irradiation was underused to zap food, and I’m still not sure what he would do if he was, hypothetically, given $20 million more for food safety. But he did use one of those words again. How to shore up the food supply? “This is a systems problem that requires a systems approach.”

Representative Sam Farr from California’s spinach district was not impressed, “It’s a mystery why they [the FDA] would come before us with so few concrete answers,” he said in a press release.

Committee members also did not let von Eschenbach off lightly when it came to drug safety, grilling him about the approval of the antibiotic Ketek—itself a subject of separate hearings. Von Eschenbach defended the FDA’s record on conflict of interest among members of its advisory committees, saying it was broadening access to experts and that the agency “Is taking a process improvement approach to this.”

The committee’s chair, Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, seems like the smartest of the bunch, bristling with sharp questions and a record of sponsoring a measure to grant the agency greater authority over post-marketing surveillance.

She and other committee members could be strong advocates for positive change at the FDA, especially if von Eschenbach begins to work better with the congressmen who have authority over his budget. Now that’s a process worth improving.