"Rolling Stone" exposes Bush Admin secret GW-denial campaign

[BrainGlutton]

Story here.

. . . It is no secret that industry-connected appointees within the White House have worked actively to distort the findings of federal climate scientists, playing down the threat of climate change. But a new investigation by Rolling Stone reveals that those distortions were sanctioned at the highest levels of our government, in a policy formulated by the vice president, implemented by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and enforced by none other than Karl Rove. An examination of thousands of pages of internal documents that the White House has been forced to relinquish under the Freedom of Information Act - as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former administration scientists and climate-policy officials - confirms that the White House has implemented an industry-formulated disinformation campaign designed to actively mislead the American public on global warming and to forestall limits on climate polluters.

Meanwhile, W continues publicly to call for solutions to the global-warming problem . . .

[Tuckerfan]

[Jackie Mason] This is news? [/JM]

[Mister_Rik]

This thread looks like an appropriate place for a link to the George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator.

[gonzomax]

Bush can generate his own conspiracies. and does.

[Blalron]

@Phase42

This thread looks like an appropriate place for a link to the George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator.

The word “conspiracy” has been tainted recently by its association with “Conspiracy Theorists”, but technically a conspiracy is any agreement by two or more people to secretly achieve a goal (often illegal).

[BrainGlutton]

@Tuckerfan

[Jackie Mason] This is news? [/JM]

The details are. E.g.:

But those who were expecting a Nixon-to-China moment from Bush on climate weren’t counting on the influence of the vice president and his industrial patrons. In March 2001, Whitman traveled to Italy for climate talks with European allies. She affirmed Bush’s commitment to regulating greenhouse gases - a position she had vetted with Condoleezza Rice and Chief of Staff Andy Card. But what Whitman didn’t grasp was that when it came to climate, the president was largely irrelevant.

Whitman should have had her doubts. Prior to joining the Cabinet, she sought personal assurance from Bush that the EPA would be able to call its own shots without deferring to the CEQ - the Council on Environmental Quality, a policy arm of the White House. As Whitman recalls it, Bush made no effort to mask his bureaucratic ignorance. “What’s CEQ?” he asked blankly.

Cheney took full advantage of the president’s cluelessness, bringing the CEQ into his own portfolio. “The environment and energy issues were really turned over to him from the beginning,” Whitman says. The CEQ became Cheney’s shadow EPA, with industry calling the shots. To head up the council, Cheney installed James Connaughton, a former lobbyist for industrial polluters, who once worked to help General Electric and ARCO skirt responsibility for their Superfund waste sites.

Industry swiftly took advantage of its new friend in the White House. In a fax sent to the CEQ on February 6th, 2001 - two weeks after Bush took office - ExxonMobil’s top lobbyist, Randy Randol, demanded a housecleaning of the scientists in charge of studying global warming. Exxon urged CEQ to dump Robert Watson, who chaired the IPCC, along with Rosina Bierbaum and Mike MacCracken, who had coordinated the National Assessment.

Exxon’s wish was the CEQ’s command. According to an internal e-mail obtained by Rolling Stone, Connaughton’s first order of business - even before his nomination was made public - was to write his White House colleagues-to-be from his law firm of Sidley & Austin. He echoed Exxon’s call that Bierbaum, the acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, be “dealt.” In the end, each of the scientists on Exxon’s hit list was replaced. “It was clear there was a strong lobby and activity against me by some in the energy industry - especially ExxonMobil,” says Watson.

[BrainGlutton]

@Phase42

This thread looks like an appropriate place for a link to the George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator.

Conspiracies do, of course, exist in real life. History is full of examples.

[Little_Nemo]

This thread looks like an appropriate place for a link to the George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator.

I’ve always wondered where Karl Rove gets his ideas.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

You know, exposing an evil & criminal Bush conspiracy really isn’t that impressive any more.
Or hard to do.
There are just so many of them!!

I mean, toss a rock in Iraq…you’ll hit 3 or 4…

[matt_mcl]

Quousque tandem, Catilina, abutere patientia nostra? Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?

[BrainGlutton]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

You know, exposing an evil & criminal Bush conspiracy really isn’t that impressive any more.
Or hard to do.
There are just so many of them!!

I mean, toss a rock in Iraq…you’ll hit 3 or 4…

Weeellll, it depends on how you use the word “criminal.” This particular set of shenanigans probably did not break any laws.

[Frostillicus]

I wish I could say I am surprised, but that would be a lie.

[BrainGlutton]

@matt_mcl

Quousque tandem, Catilina, abutere patientia nostra? Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?

“Quousque at length Catilina , to use abusive language patience our? As long as as yet madness that your we eludet? Whom to territory himself to let go without reins bragging boldness?”

Them online translators have a ways to go . . .

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@BrainGlutton

“Quousque at length Catilina , to use abusive language patience our? As long as as yet madness that your we eludet? Whom to territory himself to let go without reins bragging boldness?”

Them online translators have a ways to go . . .

If I may…

This is from Cicero’s first oration against Cataline. Matt forgot to put a space between the first two words (it should be Quo usque, not Quousque) but it translates more or less as follows:

“How long, Cataline, will you abuse our patience? How much longer is that madness of yours going to mock us? When will there be an end to your unbridled, boastful [lit. “bragging”] audacity?”

Something like that anyway. I think I remember having to translate this speech in College.

[Ukulele_Ike]

Much more literary than just using the anti-Joe McCarthy quote.

Oh, and, Carthage must be destroyed.

[Revenant_Threshold]

I hear Carthage holds the secret to a devestating Weapon of Mass Destruction. Clearly we’ll have to invade before they unleash this “Greek Fire” on us (which they can apparently deploy within 45 minutes). Yes, yes, I know, wrong time period.

[Johnny_Angel]

@Ukulele Ike

Oh, and, Carthage must be destroyed.

Carthago pwndus est.

[BrainGlutton]

By now it should come as a surprise to no one that Cheney was the one behind all this. (See post #29 and article linked therein.)

[Martiju]

@Johnny Angel

Carthago pwndus est.

Now write that out 100 times on the wall…

[AHunter3]

Somehow I managed to parse the thread title as “Rolling Stone exposes a secret plan by the Bush administration to deny the existence of George W Bush altogether”

Wonder if that would work?