Purge? What purge? (Update)

[Ivorybill]

On March 21, 2001, I started this threadabout the supposed politically motivated firing of a federal environmental scientist. (And thanks, BTW, to the folks who took the time to consider the topic and discuss the issue…)

As this story points out, the firing was not politically motivated, but rather a low-level, internal to the USGS decision to terminate a contract employee who had overstepped his (and his particular USGS office’s) bounds.

But everyone involved agrees that the issue never went any higher than Fenn, the top USGS biologist, and that the decision to terminate Thomas’s contract didn’t reach the director of Patuxent. USGS director Chip Groat, a Clinton appointee who has been retained by Bush, was never consulted about the caribou map. In fact, Norton is the only confirmed political appointee at Interior; career civil servants are running most of the department.
“Oh, please, the administration had no idea what was going on,” Fenn said. “The reality is, there is no administration yet.”

I thought that those of you who read the story in my original thread might appreciate an update.