Bush fatigue, interrupted

[theknife]

the daily parade of incompetence, cronyism, malfeasance. and stonewalling that passes for government under this regime is so routine, it's barely noteworthy. even so, this one is hard to pass unremarked:

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional committee today that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, said White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues because of political concerns. Top administration officials delayed for years and attempted to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke, he said in sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave, Dr. Carmona said. He was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president’s senior political adviser, he said.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to the Kennedy family.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people.

lift up any rock in the Bush administration and something ugly crawls out.

Dr. Carmona joins a list of present and former Bush administration officials who assert that politics often trumped science within what had previously been nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

edit: the Special Olympics stuff conjures up peculiar mental images...like maybe Karl Rove, backstage at the Special Olympics, loosening wheelchair axle hubs so the wheels fall off during parapalegic relay races, in order to embarrass the Kennedys...

[albed]

He's just mad because "the administration" wouldn't "allow" him to masturbate, "ordered" him to stop eating, "asked" him to poop his pants, and "discouraged" him from breathing.


You're obviously not bright enough to pick up on the clues that someone is spouting bullshit but the refusal to be specific is a big one. People give orders, requests and discouragement, not "the administration"; and how do you "not allow" someone to do something.


But you'd have to be incredibly stupid to think he could mention Bush 3 times on every page of every speech without drawing notice from the normal people who haven't damaged their brains with drug and alcohol abuse.


It's obvious to anyone who can think for themselves that he's just another lying nutcase that the liberal media loves to publicize. You must only comprehend a tiny fraction of the world you experience to be so clueless.

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by albed

It's obvious to anyone who can think for themselves that he's just another lying nutcase

Really?
So a Congressional committee doesn't think for them selfs then?
"lying nutcase"
I take it your under oath at a congressional committee?
"lying nutcase"
Former Surgeon General?
Who appoints the surgeon General?
I don't know?
Who would appoint a "lying nutcase"to such an important job?
Answers on a postcard

[theknife]

Originally Posted by albed

blah blah blah stupid blah blah blah liberal blah blah blah nutcase blah blah blah liberal media blah blah blah

your support for scientific illiteracy is duly noted

[Mazer]

knife, if stories like these didn't crop up every few weeks you'd go nuts, wouldn't you? I think the Betty Ford Center has a program for bad news junkies, maybe you should look into it, if not for yourself then for your loved ones.

Dr. James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies was making similar complaints about the administration a few years ago. And before that a certain individual got a witch hunt started when he said Iraq wasn't trying to buy uranium from Niger after all. It's the same old story with new names, but I guess originality isn't a major concern at the New York Times.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

It's the same old story with new names, but I guess originality isn't a major concern at the New York Times.

what, like this?

Carmona's remarks were the latest among complaints from government scientists about what they say are administration efforts to control - and sometimes distort - scientific evidence in order to support policy decisions.

NASA scientists have complained of political pressure to tone down warnings about global warming. EPA officials have complained that technical data on power plant emissions and oil drilling have been ignored.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently dissented from the administration's position by saying its restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research were holding back progress and should be lifted.

Scientists outside the government also have complained about what some call the administration's "war on science."

see a pattern here?

[albed]

Yeah a pattern of omission; no names, dates, documents, emails; just a bunch of vague horseshit about "the administration". Much like the ufo freaks make their arguments.


Ever feel skeptical when hard facts are suspiciously absent knife? Or are you just so eager to swallow anything anti-Bush you'll mindlessly accept whatever you're fed?