Blinded by Science

St. Louis Post Dispatch

The problem with scientists is that they're prejudiced. They believe in objective, verifiable reality. They're biased toward facts.Politicians have been bothered by this for years. But few of them have done as much about it as the administration of President George W. Bush.A survey released this week by the nonprofit advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists quantifies the administration's effort. More than half of the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded said they personally had experienced political interference with their work.Sometimes, it was the selective use of data to justify a regulatory decision. That happened last month when Mr. Bush personally intervened to weaken a rule governing ozone emissions. His eleventh-hour interference forced EPA officials to scramble to justify the move.

Other times, interference came when political appointees made changes during "reviews" that altered the meaning of scientific reports. Philip A. Cooney, a lobbyist Mr. Bush appointed to head the White House Council on Environment Quality, testified last year that it was his job to "align" scientific reports with administration policy. He made hundreds of edits to reports on global warming that emphasized doubt and uncertainty, not science.Though this week's report focused on the EPA, there's ample evidence of political interference in other government agencies:— White House officials removed references to the public health effects of global warming from testimony that Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had prepared for a Senate committee hearing.— Dr. Richard H. Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General, testified that Bush administration appointees tried to suppress scientific information on topics from stem cell research to contraception and abstinence-only education.— The U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called morning-after pill, Plan B for Women, for two years because of political opposition to emergency contraception. It also removed all reference to the effectiveness of condoms at protecting against sexually transmitted disease and preventing pregnancy.Administration apologists say that political appointees always have interfered with government scientific research. There's a grain of truth in that statement. But the Bush administration has raised political interference in science to a new level. Some 43 percent of EPA scientists who responded to the survey released this week said political interference was greater over the past five year than it had been during the previous 10.Taxpayers spend billions each year on scientific research. That money is wasted if the results of the work are skewed toward political ends.Congress must insulate career federal scientists from the interference of political hacks. Good public policy is based on sound science.Political truth often is based on expediency. Scientific truth is based on evidence. We confuse them at our peril.

Go Directly to Jail.

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost a quarter of its prisoners.

The Torture Sessions

From the New York Times Editorial Board
Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality?
The answer, we have learned recently, is that — with President Bush’s clear knowledge and support — some of the very highest officials in the land not only approved the abuse of prisoners, but participated in the detailed planning of harsh interrogations and helped to create a legal structure to shield from justice those who followed the orders.
We have long known that the Justice Department tortured the law to give its Orwellian blessing to torturing people, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a list of ways to abuse prisoners. But recent accounts by ABC News and The Associated Press said that all of the president’s top national security advisers at the time participated in creating the interrogation policy: Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Rumsfeld; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Colin Powell, the secretary of state; John Ashcroft, the attorney general; and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence.
These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.
Mr. Bush told ABC News this month that he knew of these meetings and approved of the result.
Those who have followed the story of the administration’s policies on prisoners may not be shocked. We have read the memos from the Justice Department redefining torture, claiming that Mr. Bush did not have to follow the law, and offering a blueprint for avoiding criminal liability for abusing prisoners.
The amount of time and energy devoted to this furtive exercise at the very highest levels of the government reminded us how little Americans know, in fact, about the ways Mr. Bush and his team undermined, subverted and broke the law in the name of saving the American way of life.
We have questions to ask, in particular, about the involvement of Ms. Rice, who has managed to escape blame for the catastrophic decisions made while she was Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, and Mr. Powell, a career Army officer who should know that torture has little value as an interrogation method and puts captured Americans at much greater risk. Did they raise objections or warn of the disastrous effect on America’s standing in the world? Did anyone?
Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions. Congress is likely to endorse a cover-up of the extent of the illegal wiretapping he authorized after 9/11, and we are still waiting, with diminishing hopes, for a long-promised report on what the Bush team really knew before the Iraq invasion about those absent weapons of mass destruction — as opposed to what it proclaimed.
At this point it seems that getting answers will have to wait, at least, for a new Congress and a new president. Ideally, there would be both truth and accountability. At the very minimum the public needs the full truth.
Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree