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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Good Thing The Adults Are In Charge

Good Thing The Adults Are In Charge

by John Cole|  June 8, 200511:29 am| 25 Comments

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

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Sometimes I wake up and read the papers and just want to scream:

A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase “significant and fundamental” before the word “uncertainties,” tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the “climate team leader” and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

Do they think this is a school project, and all they have to do is fool the teacher and climate change won’t be an issue? I don’t want junk science or unfounded claims going forward, either, but it is becoming pretty clear to me that faith-based governance simply means that anything you don’t like or anything that might require a change in your policy position should be ignored or labeled ‘junk science.’

*** Update ***

Apparently, lots of bad news finds itself *edited*..

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Reader Interactions

25Comments

  1. 1.

    Tim F

    June 8, 2005 at 11:43 am

    You can make whatever case about ideological reasons to have party X or party Y in power, but if party X either can’t or won’t respect the basic ways that government is supposed to function then it seems like the entire ideology question is moot. If the leaders behave like a bunch of chocolate-smeared toddlers then it hardly matters whether they’re Keynesians or Friedmanites or PNACers or whatever. They’ll still make a wreck of the country.

    You might want to mention that this happens all the fucking time.

  2. 2.

    Nikki

    June 8, 2005 at 1:02 pm

    I, too, don’t understand your update. Bushco obviously is in the habit of changing facts that don’t conform to their politics and they’ve been doing this ever since they first took office. So, how come you got upset about the changes made to global warming data, but proof of other changes warrant a “Ho humm [sic]”?

  3. 3.

    John Cole

    June 8, 2005 at 1:07 pm

    I was not aware this was going on, and just said “Ho humm” to have words available to link to the carpetbagger post. I can change it if you would like…

  4. 4.

    Nash

    June 8, 2005 at 1:18 pm

    Well, if the topic were the octagenarian madam, I would have suggested you change the link to Humm ho.

  5. 5.

    Mr Furious

    June 8, 2005 at 2:15 pm

    “I was not aware this was going on”

    Are you serious, John? I’ve only been coming ’round here since Schiavo, but you’ve got to be kidding me that you’ve been missing this shit.

    I am astounded. You must have really been under the spell…

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    June 8, 2005 at 2:23 pm

    Yeah, I pretty viciously trumpeted the party line up until a few months ago.

    Schiavo was the “What the Fuck is Going On” antidote.

    I even went to the County Clerk today to change my voter registration to independent, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger yet.

    My party has left me.

  7. 7.

    Rick

    June 8, 2005 at 2:36 pm

    You and Jim Jeffords. Quite a party you’d have there, John. ;)

    Cordially…

  8. 8.

    Nikki

    June 8, 2005 at 3:12 pm

    Oh, then I offer my apologies to you, John!

  9. 9.

    Nikki

    June 8, 2005 at 3:14 pm

    BTW: No shame in registering as an independent. I am one, though I am very much a left-leaning liberal.

  10. 10.

    Nash

    June 8, 2005 at 3:44 pm

    I imagine how you self-identify in public, John, is much less important that how you self-identify in the privacy of your own thoughts.

    Unless it’s some WVA thing, I’m not sure I see the point in registering as an independent. Far more important, it would seem to me, is to think as an independent, and that’s a nirvana you seem to be fast approaching anyway. I’ve been working on a case of it myself.

    It saves on gas mileage and mental wear and tear when you don’t have to continue to change the registration because that particular party has left you, breaking your heart. Because, sure as shootin’, your next paramour is also going to cheat on you. I know it, you know it. Doesn’t matter whether it’s the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Greens, or the denizens of the Outer Kuciniverse, they are all going to break our hearts. It’s always safest to keep our bags packed and our toothbrushes handy for the quick getaway.

    Perhaps WVA has mechanisms requiring declarations and the like. Here in a more western red state, we re-declare by the line we get in to vote in the primaries. But, as John O’Neill states, we can always be voting for the individual. Only problem with my little bit of heaven scenario in vote selection is that frequently the selection of available paramours comprises a barful of [insert the gender of your choice here] drunks, falling off their stools and slurring their words, while all the time, the lecherous lobbyists in the corner are footing the tab.

  11. 11.

    Tim F

    June 8, 2005 at 3:55 pm

    It would work just as well for me if a mass of registered Republicans kept their registration but threw out these jokers who are disgracing their party. As long as the Democrats don’t spend their tenure ending war and hunger and curing all illness Republican leaders will soon enough show up who deserve their party’s name.

  12. 12.

    shawn

    June 8, 2005 at 4:11 pm

    “I was not aware this was going on, and just said “Ho humm” to have words available to link to the carpetbagger post.”

    Three words: Downing Street Minutes.

    Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
    …
    The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
    …
    Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

    Those “spikes of activity” were bombing runs.

    THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
    The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

    John, I know you agreed with the Iraq war, and I agree that Saddam was a bad man, but it really PISSES ME OFF that they lied to us repeatedly. I was pissed at Clinton for not keeping his dick in his pants, but lying about a blowjob pales in comparison to this.

  13. 13.

    Wrye

    June 8, 2005 at 4:33 pm

    These people have abused your trust, John, yours and many other principled Republicans, besides. The sheer brazenness is distrurbing, as well. I only wish the issues were less serious.

    I also wish mainstream commentators could point out the connection that even minor Climate change=changing weather patterns=possible crop failures=leading to possibly billions (trillions?) in losses and oh, just of the top of my head, widespread frickin’ FAMINE…

  14. 14.

    Shawn

    June 8, 2005 at 5:02 pm

    Wrye, you said, “in losses and oh, just of the top of my head, widespread frickin’ FAMINE…”

    I saw a story linked on Drudge a month or so ago that was very thought provoking. Sorry I don’t have time to search for the link right now. It was about a bee blight, parasites I think, killing all the bees in certain states. It talked about how farmers can’t pollinate food crops without bees, etc. I thought then about our “Who gives a shit” policy toward environmental protection. It’s amazing how things are interrelated.

    We could be one insect extinction away from worldwide famine.

  15. 15.

    CaseyL

    June 8, 2005 at 9:22 pm

    Sometimes I wonder if Bush isn’t somehow an activated Soviet mole, because God knows his policies could scarsely be worse than if he’d *set out* to to ruin the country.

    And sometimes I wonder if poor old Gaea isn’t rooting desperately for global climate change to reach its terminus, because God knows She must be sick and tired of us by now.

  16. 16.

    Sojourner

    June 8, 2005 at 10:51 pm

    Frankly, John is the first real indication I’ve seen that there may be hope for this country. Finally, thoughtful Repubs are beginning to question the insanity of this administration.

  17. 17.

    John Cole

    June 8, 2005 at 11:05 pm

    If you think I am a sign of hope AND thoughtful, clearly the terrorists have won.

  18. 18.

    Sojourner

    June 8, 2005 at 11:24 pm

    There are days when I think they have won – by scaring the American people so badly they’ll believe the BS this administration is selling.

    Allow me one glimmer of hope. ;-)

  19. 19.

    Losing Faith

    June 9, 2005 at 11:19 am

    “Frankly, John is the first real indication I’ve seen that there may be hope for this country. Finally, thoughtful Repubs are beginning to question the insanity of this administration.”

    You need to look and listen a little harder. I’ve read and heard (usually on Air America ofcoarse) many Repubs not only raising their voice in dissatisfaction with these sorts of things, but officially leaving the party. Not necessarily to become Dem (which is fine!), but still disgusted enough to know these loons are on a rampage.

  20. 20.

    Sam

    June 9, 2005 at 11:27 am

    Finally, thoughtful Repubs are beginning to question the insanity of this administration.

    And then we think of Howard Dean… and we’re glad we’re not Democrats.

  21. 21.

    Sojourner

    June 9, 2005 at 11:29 am

    Losing Faith:

    You may be right. Hopefully in large enough numbers that the few remaining moderate Repubs in the Congress grow some balls. That part of the equation is still missing.

  22. 22.

    Sojourner

    June 9, 2005 at 11:30 am

    And then we think of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Thomas, Brown, Delay, Frist, Sessions, Hatch, etc.etc… and we’re damn glad we’re not Repubs.

  23. 23.

    Compuglobalhypermeganet

    June 9, 2005 at 12:04 pm

    It takes a special kind of naivety to believe that ALL reports are not edited to suit some level of political agenda. The UN eliminated caveats to their global-warming report in 1996. Doubts about the validity of man-made climate change were deleted from a NASA study done under Clinton. Two of the three scientists studying the “Ozone hole” said the results of their study are inconclusive, but the one who rushed to the mic doom-screaming got all the press (and presumably, more money for research).

    When there’s mountains of evidence on both sides, Whitman’s explanation of eliminating the entire section doesn’t seem as sinister as the New York Times (wow, the Times champions a liberal cause while bashing the Bush Administration — who woulda thunk?) wants to make it sound.

    “The first draft, as with many first drafts, contained everything,” she said in a brief telephone interview from the CBS studios in Manhattan, where she was waiting to tape “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

    “As it went through the review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change,” Ms. Whitman said. “So rather than go out with something half-baked or not put out the whole report, we felt it was important for us to get this out because there is a lot of really good information that people can use to measure our successes.”

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

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    June 8, 2005 at 9:32 pm

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  2. Mark in Mexico says:
    June 9, 2005 at 12:59 am

    1 in 3 Scientists Commit Misconduct

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