Deutsch is not the problem

[trochee]

The liberal political blogosphere is all a-twitter [link rundown in that last] about George Deutsch, who apparently tried to clamp down on NASA scientist James E. Hansen's publication of information about global warming, and most recently tried to pull the "it's just a theory" line on the Big Bang. NASA administrators are understandably pissed and (after some time) wrote a strong statement about political appointees trying to control NASA science.

The NYT describes as Deutsch "a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the "war room" of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign". But the latest dirt on Deutsch is that he's been padding his resume and actually didn't graduate from Texas A&M as previously reported. There is much rejoicing and schadenfreude among the bloggers.

One of my labmates (a frequent reader of the Democratic (and I do mean capital D) weblogs) tipped me off to this story, but I ended up in a vocal argument with the guy because I felt that this detail was so not the point of the outrage, and descends to mudslinging.

I still feel that way. Deutsch should lose his job -- not because of his resume issues, but because he's a political appointee who should not be attempting to control the publications of a science organization like NASA. It muddies the water to attack this footsoldier on those grounds -- the real problem (as Hansen has said) is far deeper than this little schmuck: it's a problem with a political power environment that sees everything as a powergrab.

Deutsch is a loser, but cutting him off at the knees based on his lack of degree also cuts off our chance to draw the parallels. Political appointees of the Bush administration all see their role as political, not as stewardship. From this we have gotten:

• Michael Brown running FEMA
• Republican appointees gutting the NLRB
• Samuel "never saw executive power he didn't like" Alito on the Supreme Court
• Jack Abramoff writing legislation
• Michael Powell et al. at the FCC

That corruption -- the bending of all government services to serve political ends -- is what we should be attacking, not incompetent little peons like George Deutsch.

I wish somebody could offer Deutsch a "blogosphere plea bargain": if he'll talk candidly about what kind of explicit and implicit controls he was being asked to put on NASA's science work, we'll lay off. In the meantime, picking on his academic record is a red-herring and takes the fight straight into the gutter, and the Cheney/Rove/Libby axis is really good at the gutterfight.

As people who believe that science -- whether government-funded or not -- is better served by independence from the political wings of government, we owe it to ourselves to stick to the real issue: that Deutsch is an example of political handlers trying to control the dissemination of actual facts.

Reporters Without Borders would -- and should -- raise a hue and cry over political control of news reporting. Where is the "Scientists without Borders"?

Comments

[mythalethe.livejournal.com]

Xlation: I like your use of the internets for writing thoughts and stuff!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

that sounds like a pretty loose translation ;-)

Thanks! I feel the same way about reading your journal.

Sorry I missed the Supahbowl with you -- but I would like to hang out some time. Soon!