bush appointee for nasa’s PR division forced to resign
February 8th, 2006 by Lawrence David
it’s hard not to read this story with a bit of glee. it seems that once again, president bush took an unqualified, but loyal supporter and installed him in a public office – and the guy’s now getting hung out to dry:
George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word “theory” at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.
Mr. Deutsch’s resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.
Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA’s public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush’s re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.
what’s pretty interesting is that these events were probably precipitated by one blogger’s report. (amazing – he turned up this information only 2 days ago!)
nonetheless, this turn of events probably doesn’t change this administration’s attitude towards ignoring or even trying to blatantly obfuscate unfavorable science (like reports on global warming). one can at least hope, though, that this story will cause the public to examine the administration’s science policies with greater scrutiny.
