Nice Work If You Can Get It
Via Atrios (I can't get the item link to work, but it's the entry titled "Sciencey") I learned about George Deutsch, the 24-year-old presidential appointee NASA press officer who taught NASA scientists what science really is.
Anyway, it made me wonder how a recent college graduate in journalism got appointed to be a spokesman for NASA (which job seems to involve telling rocket scientists how rockets works, and the like). So, I Googled some of George's columns at the Texas A&M Battalion, and I think I have a few ideas about some of the qualities which the White House was looking for in public affairs officer.
1. A Spirit of Scientific Openness
And as we learn from the column "Is Peterson's fair trial in jeopardy?," George is open to a lot of theories, including the one about Satanists killing Laci Peterson.
Still, the defense's main theory -- that a Satanic cult killed Laci -- is actually quite credible. Several impartial witnesses have reported seeing a van adorned with satanic symbols and a man with "666" tattooed on his arm in front of the Peterson home in late December.
The American public seems to dismiss this theory as ridiculous, but Satanic killings didn't seem so ridiculous in the 1980s, when Richard Ramirez -- The Night Stalker -- made California his personal hunting ground. Ramirez, who sat in court with a pentagram etched in his palm and often said "Hail Satan," adds a very real face to the idea of Satanism. Try convincing the families of his victims that Satanic cults don't exist.
And was Ramirez a member of a Satanic cult? Well, no - but that doesn't change the fact that Satanists could have killed Laci. And Intelligent Design could be responsible for the creation of the universe. They are both theories, and therefore, both should be given the same credence and the same respect that scientists give to theories like "evolution" or "global warming."
So, whenever you write about the Peterson case, you should mention that while Peterson has been convicted of killing his wife and unborn son, it's possible that Satanists actually framed him for the crime. If you don't do this, young people would only be getting one-half of this debate, which would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.
2. A Commitment to the Truth
Here's George with "Commission Findings Don't Contradict Bush" (a piece which seems to be missing from the Battalion archives for some reason).
The ties between al-Qaida and Iraq are clear. So clear, in fact, that there is so much circumstantial evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaida that it would be hard for an informed person not to at least suspect Saddam's regime of having a hand in the attacks.
[...]
Cheney went on to mention evidence of a Czech intelligence report, which has yet to be confirmed or denied, that asserts that Sept. 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta met with senior Iraqi officials in Prague just weeks before the attacks.
Well, the report was denied by the CIA, the FBI, and Czech intelligence, but Cheney has never denied it, so I guess it too stands as a viable theory. That's how scienceiness works in a Bushian democracy.
3. An Ability to Look Facts Squarely in the Eye
"Unfounded Accusations"
There is simply no proof to support claims that Rumsfeld orchestrated an elaborate plan to interrogate prisoners through torture and humiliation - such an assertion is laughable.
[...]
[I]t is absurd to think that the secretary of defense for the strongest nation in the free world would encourage torturous interrogation tactics in a war his nation was winning and at the possible expense of his political career. Even more absurd is that his well-thought and "highly secretive" plan would involve unskilled military reservists being ordered to pose for staged photographs with nude Iraqi prisoners.
Yes, is is absurd to think the Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered the guards at Abu Ghraib to stack the prisoners in a naked pyramid and take photos of them. Therefore, whatever happened there (and anywhere else where Iraqi prisoners were abused), must have been soley the fault of the low-ranking personnel who were court martialed for the offenses. If you don't believe the former, then you have to believe the latter.
However, that "Big Bang" theory is all just so much speculation, and so you must credit God for personally creating the universe out of nothingness -- anything else would be absurd.
4. A Contempt for the Liberal Media
From the above column:
For example, the discovery of the chemical agents sarin and mustard gas last month by U.S. forces was largely ignored by the media in spite of the fact that these chemical weapons represent the justification for war the Bush administration has sought for so long. Most of the liberal media has shown that it is so bound by partisan ideology that it would rather continue to subvert its own country's war efforts than concede any sort of justification for invading Iraq. This is a shame.
By "ignored," I guess George means "reported in articles by CNN, the A.P., the WaPo, etc., but failed to claim that finding one inactive mustard gas shell and one old sarin shell proved that we were justified in invading Iraq."
See, the important thing is that the liberal press isn't telling the truth, "truth" being whatever the President wants it to say. And sometimes scientists don't tell the "truth" either. And that's why we need Presidentially-appointed public affairs officers. And if they are young Bush supporters from Texas, that's all the better.
5:51:21 PM 
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