The Politicization of Science Under ()

Remember when the left told us that if we voted for McCain we would see the continued undermining of science for political ends? Well, I voted for McCain and look what happened.

From Breitbart:

Academics, environmentalists and federal investigators have accused the administration since the April spill of downplaying scientific findings, misrepresenting data and most recently misconstruing the opinions of experts it solicited.

Meanwhile, the owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, Transocean Ltd., is renewing its argument that federal investigators are in danger of allowing the blowout preventer, a key piece of evidence, to corrode as it awaits forensic analysis. Testing had not begun as of last week, the company says, some two months after it was raised from the seafloor.

It seems that ignoring science, engineering and economics is a bipartisan sport.

Meanwhile Louisiana sends a delegation of six Republicans and only one Democrat to the House of Representatives. (Check Huey Long's grave for rotation.) Meanwhile, Republican David Vitter, won re-election to the Senate with a whopping 57% majority despite being linked to a D.C. call girl scandal. From the Tri-Parish Times:

Vitter's problems amounted to more than a blot. He was the "serious sin" senator, linked by phone records to a call girl business run by Washington's "D.C. Madam," Deborah Palfrey.

No matter. He won 57 percent of the vote to Melancon's 38 percent, after successfully tying Melancon to every Obama policy unpopular with Louisiana voters - except in Richmond's 2nd District.

Obama's handling of the BP Oil Spill continues to haunt him.

Over and over on DailyKos, during the run up to the 2008 elections, I kept reading how Democrats were the party that was "competent" to run the federal government. Hope lefties are enjoying this particular crap sandwich.

No One Challenged Your Manhood, Just Your Competence

In another petulant and childish display, the President simultaneously uses perfectly proper grammar while indulging a schoolyard bully slang expression to try to look tough on the oil spill.




"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

Actually, that's exactly what we think (the college seminar part). I find it interesting that Obama is self aware enough to know that the public is starting to view him as an ineffectual intellectual, but not smart enough to realize that his use of perfectly proper grammar undermines his street cred.

Finally, the only street cred people really care about is if the federal government had been able to take action to prevent or stop the spill. Short of that, nobody really cares about all the posing, fake street talk, or any other stupid thing you might think of.

Blaming Bush?

If you thought Democrats running against Bush in 2008 was lame, dig this.

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.

And whose fault is that, even if her whiny excuses were in fact, the truth? The Democrats have had overwhelming majorities in both houses, so the President should be able to get any appointees through that he needs. Who are these hold overs any way? Pelosi continues with her politically tone deaf commentary.

…I’ve heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it,” Pelosi said.

Apparently, there are no Democrat House members from Gulf Coast states, and this guy isn't a Congresscritter:



Ladies and gentlemen, the always entertaining James Carville.

Oily Sleazy Talk*

Dean has aptly commented on Obama's political problems that are represented by the Gulf oil spill, riffing off more insight from Peggy Noonan. I agree with Dean that even if one gives Obama the benefit of the doubt,

The reality of the situation now is, we will wake up tomorrow with a 10% unemployment rate, a crappy economy, pending nanny-state legislation with higher taxes and anti-growth consequences and still the very real possibility of an evolving, years-long ecological and economic meltdown in the Gulf.

I agree, and have a hard time not gloating over the crap sandwich that looks very much like the Katrina sandwich served up to George Bush. But I also want to point out something else brought out by Noonan:

His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America—confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet the need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"

This is one of the reasons I haven't piled on Obama over the spill. In fact, the federal government, by its nature is not really capable of preventing and responding to every disaster that might befall us. If we excoriate Obama for failing to prevent this, or failing to respond appropriately, aren't we saying that we believe that disaster prevention is the province of the federal government? Now in this particular case, the regulators in the Lake Charles, LA office seemed to have cozy relationships with the regulated:

Employees of a federal agency that regulates offshore drilling—including some whose duties included inspecting offshore oil rigs—accepted sporting-event tickets, meals, and other gifts from oil and natural-gas companies and used government computers to view pornography, according to a new report by the Interior Department's inspector general.

The report—published Tuesday on the inspector general's website—describes a culture in which inspectors assigned to the Lake Charles, La., office of the Minerals Management Service have moved with "ease" between jobs in industry and government, drawing on relationships that formed "well before they took their jobs" with the agency.

This is typical of government attempts to regulate industry. As industry becomes more complex, it is difficult to find those with the ability to perform adequate technical oversight without drawing on the industry it is regulating. This is known as regulatory capture, and happens frequently, as W.C. would point out in the banking industry. Another consequence of regulatory capture is that it creates a false sense of security and a dilution of responsibility. In this case, one might ask, who is responsible for the mistakes or poor practices that led to this disaster? Doesn't the federal government bear some portion of the blame for failing to regulate? If not, why are we regulating at all?

What is the solution? I think that we have to be clear in tort law that BP would be fully responsible financially for the environmental damage they might cause. Might this bankrupt them? Perhaps, but it provides a better incentive than lax regulation.

Meanwhile, graft, oil and sleaze mixing in the Big Easy? Who knew?

*Reference for the title comes from one of my favorite MST3K episodes of all time.