Bush appointees uber alles
So, on NPR this morning, there was a story about how career lawyers (meaning, people who got their jobs by applying for them) at the Justice Department, agreed unanimously that Tom DeLay's redistricting of Texas voting districts was illegal, but they were overruled by a Bush administration apointee.
It caused me to wonder how many instances of this there have been, since Bush took office. I can think of a few off the top of my head, and Ken has supplied me with a few more, but I'd like other input, too.
But here's what I got:
1. Texas redistricting issue. Despite unanimous internal opinion that the redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act, Bush political appointees overruled that decison and the "Justice Department" ruled that the plan was not illegal. The matter of the legality of the redistricting is now before the Supreme Court.
WaPo | NPR | NYTimes | Opposition view at the NRO
2. Plan B "morning after" pill. In an unprecedented move, officials within the FDA ignored the opinions of an independent panel and in-house scientists and rejected an application to allow over-the-counter sales of a "morning after" birth control pill.
NYTimes | WaPo
Keep in mind, I'm not talking about incompetent Bush appointees, but rather political appointees whose decisions seem to fly in the face of long-time or credentialed staff. Any other examples?
Of course the best example is Cheney's Office of Special Plans, which was designed to stove-pipe Chalabi's intelligence and ignore that of our intelligence community. Of course we know the bad intelligence on Iraq was all CIA's fault..
Recent examples include the NASA official censoring a well-respected (peer-reviewed) scientist's views on global warming. The politicizing of science is one the cornerstones of my disapproval of Bush, and there's tons of documentation if you want to look. Here's an official site lead by Henry Waxman that has some good information: Politics and Science