Bush and Science: Impeachable?

Maybe Franken is right and George Bush is just a lier. Today in the Boston Globe I read that funding for fusion research is being cut by the Department of Energy. But I remember Bush saying in his State of the Union message that the way for us to reduce our dependence on foreign oil was in part through technology and nuclear power. Fucking lier.

And this goes well with the recent stories of how Philip Cooney, the chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had edited official reports on climate change in 2002 and 2003 "inserting qualifiers designed to cast doubt on findings about climate change and to play down the link between climate change and industrial greenhouse gas emissions" (quote from today's Washington Post). He resigned on Friday, just two days after the story broke. But of course officially it's "completely unrelated" (according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino) to the accusations.

Here was Bush's chance to say we won't allow this in our administration, but no. The White House defended the edits, saying they were part of the normal review process. Scott McClellan (White House spokesman) said Wednesday that Cooney was "someone who's very familiar with the issues relating to climate change and the environment". Maybe so, but he's lawyer with no scientific training and worked for more than 10 years for the American Petroleum Institute as, guess what, a lobbyist for the U.S. oil and natural gas industry. What business does he have editing climate research reports?

This week NASA reported that unusual weather patterns helped reduce the artic ozone loss but that it was still bad. Scientists aren't sure what's going on with the climate and are trying to do more research to find out. That's why this story is so damning for the administration. "In places where uncertainties in climate research were described, Mr. Cooney added qualifiers like 'significant' and 'fundamental'" (quote from the New York Times). It's not like the scientists are sure, they had uncertainties and it seems the administration exagerated them to support their policy. Just like they are accused of doing with Iraq and WMD's. Let's also add in the position on stem-cell research, remember Bush lied about the number of viable stem-cell lines available. Gee maybe there's a pattern.

Oh and go to Fox News and search for "Philip Cooney", when I did it today there were no stories on it at all, Google News returned 47. I at least expected a story of how the liberal media is blowing this out of proportion. "Fair and Balanced" my ass.