I don't know who here has heard about this, but it recently came to light that a certain Mr. George Deutsch, a 24 year old political appointee working in NASA's PR department has been pushing the Bush administration's pro-creationist view into NASA. George Deutsch was appointed to the job for his loyal help on the 2004 Bush campaign.
From the
New York Times:
Quote:
They called or e-mailed The Times and sent documents showing that news releases were delayed or altered to mesh with Bush administration policies.
In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.
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There's more. He has apparently outright said that his job is to make the Bush administration look good. From
The New York Times:
Quote:
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.
But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal."
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Anyways, yesterday, after a good bit of public outcry against George Deutsch and his attempts to put a political spin on science, and the discovery that he had falsified his resume, stating that he had graduated from Texas A&M when he had in fact not done so, he was forced to resign:
Again, from
The New York Times:
Quote:
Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M last year with a biochemistry degree and has been writing a Web log on science policy, scientificactivist.blogspot.com.
After Mr. Anthis read about the problems at NASA, he said in an interview: "It seemed like political figures had really overstepped the line. I was just going to write some commentary on this when somebody tipped me off that George Deutsch might not have graduated."
He posted a blog entry asserting this after he checked with the university's association of former students. He reported that the association said Mr. Deutsch received no degree.
A copy of Mr. Deutsch's résumé was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other NASA employees, said Mr. Deutsch played a small but significant role in an intensifying effort at the agency to exert political control over the flow of information to the public.
Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen's speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.
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Consider it a victory for the scientific community... But the concerning thing is
another Bush appointee resigning after
another scandal involving
another falsified resume. First FEMA's Brown, then Harriet Myers (admittedly not a scandal nor a falsified resume, but another case of an unqualified political appointee), and now this guy... Is it just me, or does there seem to be a huge rash of totally unqualified and dubiously appointed political appointees coming out of the Bush administration? I don't think for a second that the Democrats or anyone else don't also use political appointees, but it seems that there's an incredible number of them coming out of the Bush administration, causing problem after problem. I don't care who you are or what party you come from, but that's unacceptable. Not only is the administration seemingly rampantly appointing wholly unqualified people into important posts, but he's trying to put a spin on science as well. Not acceptable.
To paraphrase Ratbastid, it seems like the wheels are falling off the Bush train.