I started out to put this in IMHO because it’s just an opinion. I think it probably would end up here anyway so to same moderators some trouble, here it is.
This morning’s Los Angles Times has this story aboutInterior Department top brass editing out unpleasant conclusions in a report. I’ve seen a an increasing number of other such accounts of the inputs to reports by low level scientists and others being changed by the top level political appointees to make the report conclusions kinder to the business friends of the administration.
In addition we have the political appointees of the Justice Department using what appears to be pettifoggery to justify holding people indefinitely without charge, on little apparent evidence in order to get intelligence data, and with no access to legal assistance to force a review of their treatment by an impartial authority.
Is it any wonder that some of us are seriously worried about what sort of people GW would name for the Surpreme Court?
Of course the phenomenon of government reports being edited for the convenience of certain parties didn’t start with the Dubya administration, but it certainly does seem to have gotten more brazen since her arrived in office. When it comes to global warming they simply remove any mention of it from the EPA’s reports, even if those come with carefully documentation and references to hundreds of solid articles on the topic.
The philosophy of the current administration seems to be, seriously, that the “truth” is whatever serves their agenda. If you have a report about global warming, you edit it to turn any high probabilities and inconvenient facts into vague possibilities, not worth worrying about; this supports an agenda that places corporate profits ahead of any environmental concerns. If you have a report on, say, WMD in Iraq, you just reverse the process and turn rumors and speculation into rock-solid certainty.
This is almost identical to the story this week of a guy who was caught rewriting government research about global warming. He resigned and went back to his old job at Exxon.
Some say there’s a trend toward hiring regulators from the industries being regulated. In defense of it, it can be said that it makes sense to hire somebody who an expert in the field when you’re setting out to make rules. On the other side of the issue, you can count on hearing about foxes guarding the chicken coop.
My own opinion is cynical. I disagree with putting political contributors ahead of the good of the country. On the other hand, this trail of what seems to be corruption could hurt the GOP in the future.
Probably most administrations do this - tailor the reports to suit their political agendas. But the Bush administration seems to be doing this to an unprecendented degree. And what’s worse is that there seems to be a philosophical difference - past administrations seem to believe that they were capable of hiding reality; the Bush administration seems to believe it is capable of altering reality.
There’s a difference between being an expert and being a corporate shill. I started a thread in the Pit about this, and was blasted for more "bush-bashing. I guess everyone’s suffering from “indignation-fatigue”
No one Bush nominates would be as far right as Ruth Bader Ginsberg is far left, and she passed 96-4.
You gotta realize that the Liberals are becoming a greater part of the Democrat party, now that New Democrats have come and gone. Since Liberals can’t get their policies enacted through the ballot box, they have to enact social change through the Judiciary. Therefore a full-court press is now on to prevent conservative judges from getting ANY seat, let alone the Supreme Court. Any dirty trick is OK now, including demands for documents which they fully know that they have no right to demand and changing confirmation rules from simple majority to 60 votes.
Don’t expect fair and unbiased sources in the media like the LA Times :eyeroll: to sit idly by and report both sides fairly. Be sure to check out what right-leaning sources have to say about these matters.
Dirty tricks are the name of the fucking game. Politics is dirty tricks, dirty money, lying, back scratching and reach-arounds. I can only think of a few senators I don’t actively hate, and I’m seriously considering moving to those states.
[Bill Hicks/]
I hope you know…all governments are lying cocksuckers.
[/BH]
D505, you seem to have wandered into the wrong thread. I am not sure what complaints about judicial nominations (even when described less than accurately) have to do with efforts by the administration to control and even distort scientific proceedings in a manner reminiscent of Lysenko.
I think D505’s comments are relevant to the thread - he’s pointing out that it’s not necessary to actually understand the issues being discussed in order to blame the liberals.
I did mention my worries about the type of judge that Bush will appoint. Bush seems to me to appoint a lot of people who are willing to pick and choose from among the data underlying a technical or scientific report in order to get an outcome suitable to GW’s business campaign contributers. He also seems to have appointed attorneys who are willing to look for any pettifogging nit in order to justify holding people indefinitely without their having any recourse. So I assume he will appoint judges who will pick and choose from among the various precedents in order to come up with a decision that will allow the executive department to pretty much do as it pleases in the cases where the executive wants such an outcome.
tomndebb- thanks for those cites. One thing I like about this place is the wealth of quality cites that people put in their posts, saving us all a lot of time searching.
Bush’s use of faith over reason is distasteful, unless you share his faith. His use of making information fit to meet his end purpose is reprehensible, unless you share his end purpose. People who are concerned about his attack on science are those that wouldn’t vote for him anyway, and those that do vote for him often don’t care about letting facts get in the way of their convictions (or their profits). So for now he gets away with his assault on reason, but in the long run he will reach too far (if he hasn’t already) and bring his party down with him.
I’m concerned about his potential choices for the Supreme Court as well, although I don’t see a correlation between selecting a justice of a particular philosophy and the outright suppression of legitimate science. We all know what he’s going to look for in a justice, and if that concerns you then you should have been beating the bushes getting votes out for Kerry.