"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

The Jokes Write Themselves

So you may or may not have heard about the NASA scientist who was being pressured by the Bush Administration to STFU about global warming:

NASA's top climatologist, James E. Hansen, recently urged swift action to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. When he did, the agency's public affairs machinery went into overdrive.

NASA officials ordered Hansen to submit for review any lectures, Internet statements and journalists' requests for interviews. Hansen recently posted a widely quoted report on a NASA Web site stating that 2005 was the hottest year since comprehensive weather records were first kept.

A NASA political appointee, William Deutsch, nixed an interview with Hansen on National Public Radio. Deutsch reportedly told another NASA public affairs officer that NPR was "the most liberal media source" in the nation and that his job "was to make the president look good."

Young Mr. Deutch (think phonetically for a second), is a 24-year old Bush/Cheney '04 campaign staffer who somehow got the assignment to be the PR hefe for NASA. A 24-year old who has been telling people he's got a degree in Journalism from Texas A&M. It turns out that this, is, in fact, a lie.

Now, I don't think it's all that bad to drop out of school. I've encouraged numerous young people in my field to do this. However, I do think it's sort of indicative of the Bush gestalt that this kid went ahead and claimed he had a degree. And even if he did, what the heck is a political flunky with no science background doing managing public communications from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration? Being a Deutch, it seems. This is also part of the Bush gestalt.

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