Brian Beutler: Diseased

I keep noticing that there's this Republican war on science. Somebody should really write a book about it:

Former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona yesterday accused the Bush administration of muzzling him on sensitive public health issues, becoming the most prominent voice among several current and former federal science officials who have complained of political interference.

Carmona, a Bush nominee who served from 2002 to 2006, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that political appointees in the administration routinely scrubbed his speeches for politically sensitive content and blocked him from speaking out on public health matters such as stem cell research, abstinence-only sex education and the emergency contraceptive Plan B....

White House spokesman Tony Fratto rejected claims of political interference, saying Carmona had all the support he needed to carry out his mission. "As surgeon general, Dr. Carmona was given the authority and had the obligation to be the leading voice for the health of all Americans," Fratto said. "It's disappointing to us if he failed to use his position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation."

Carmona said that when the administration touted funding for abstinence-only education, he was prevented from discussing research on the effectiveness of teaching about condoms as well as abstinence. "There was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to just preach abstinence, which I felt was scientifically incorrect," Carmona said.

I don't really have much to say about this. It's a problem that has been so obvious for so long, and it's so late in the game now, that at this point I probably can't Trojan Horse any interesting thoughts into the discussion. One thing that does surprise me is that I think that, in the face of failing to establish a "permanent Republican majority"--a goal that was pretty clearly unattainable by 2004, and a self-evident disaster by 2006--it's odd that the president and his team continue to pursue these deeply unpopular evangelical mobilization strategies. I realize that Bush doesn't face re-election next year, but he's still making it extremely difficult for the eventual Republican nominee to be popular with both Washington Republicans and voters and yet remain coherent.

I can also say that the tactic Tony Fratto is using, while typically low, is also sort of telling. Fratto's basically saying that Carmona's job was his own to screw up, but doesn't go as far as defending the administration from the actual charges. Probably because that would require saying explicitly that Carmona is lying. But why commit slander overtly when the lie can ne just as easily implied without any embarrassing repercussions?