1115.org

The A1 headline of Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle practically leapt off the racks as I walked by:

Bush pushes very hot button

President’s comments embolden anti-evolutionists

Last week, I thought the President’s remarks calling for equal classroom footing for evolution and “intelligent design” were not even significant enough to justify comment. In the days following his unfortunate words, he was roundly criticized and even found himself in the awkward territory at the (religious) right of Senator Rick Santorum, who decided that he’d rather flip-flop on the issue rather than stand with the President. But a funny thing happened in the blind spot created by my complete lack of respect for the man who occupies the Oval Office: I underestimated the power the office carries, and how little encouragement is needed by his born-again constituency.

It’s not a mistake I’ve made before, nor one I’ll make again thanks to a deft headline writer who jolted me back to reality. Taking a look at what the President said [”I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught. I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.”] reveals another link in a shockingly effective strategy that has served the administration well, but the nation ill. On every controversial issue a dichotomy is set up, often between non-equivalent objects, allowing the media to write the only type of story they know these days: “he said / she said.”

In the past, (in some cases as recently as September 10, 2001) such controversies were settled by science. Whether economics, medicine, statistics / probability, climatology or any number of other disciplines, a factual answer awaited anyone who sought one. Fringe beliefs and their accompanying reverse-engineered theories were discounted in favor of what could be proven using data and the scientific method. But four years of with-us-or-against-us-ism has created a new reality aided by the depreciation of science and the marginalization of those who attempt to explain events using the language of nature in favor of faith-based dogma and spin.

With Republicans firmly in control of all three branches of the federal government, only science can restrict their efforts to help campaign contributors, discredit the idea of federal government, and fully implement their agenda. And by implementing a campaign against facts, the administration has managed to place their spin on equal footing with science. A small thought exercise: How surprised would you be to see the following headline in tomorrow’s papers?

US company detects decrease in gravity

Readies line of weighted shoes and boots as government agency confirms possibility

Said company would only need be a donor to Republican candidates to attain such “validation,” as a quick look at the effect of Tom Ridge’s “duct tape & plastic sheeting” warning on Home Depot’s stock clearly demonstrates. But most of the anti-fact chicanery happens either on hot-button social issues or topics more complex than the majority of Americans care to examine.

In the Reagan years, Republicans invented supply-side economics and its main tenant the Laffer curve as a method to cut taxes and de-fund the government by conning the country into thinking that their goals weren’t insane. Yet after the largest tax cut at the time, Reagan was forced to raise taxes to address the problems supply-side caused.

Since he took office, George W. Bush has pushed the same tax cuts under circumstances ranging from massive budget surpluses to skyrocketing budget deficits. When it became clear that his first two rounds of tax cuts weren’t working as advertised, the third was labeled the “Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003,” and along with all the other giveaways has been credited by the administration with creating millions of jobs. But that doesn’t take into account how slow and weak the recovery has been in terms of jobs, nor the exorbitant cost of the tax cuts per job created.

From the St. Louis Fed:

So the administration spin about healthy job creation is a myth not borne out by the facts that a smaller percentage of Americans are working, yet the story continues to be “Democrats point to weak job growth - Republicans say their plan is working”. And to bolster their claims, Democrats point to numbers like those of the St. Louis Fed that show poor job numbers and the six-figure cost of each job created, while Republicans point to the long-since discredited work of Arthur Laffer and his curve.

On several occasions, the President has belittled the Kyoto climate treaty and the underlying problem of global warming it was designed to address. After first denying that global warming was caused by humans, and mocking a report that contradicted him, he then said that implementing Kyoto would have “wrecked” our economy. And he wasn’t alone is going after the scientists whose findings exposed his lies; the chairman of the House Energy Committee joined in the fun. But laboratory science isn’t the only proof that responsible environmental stewardship is possible without breaking the bank:

Newly released data show that Portland, America’s environmental laboratory, has achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions. It has reduced emissions below the levels of 1990, the benchmark for the Kyoto accord, while booming economically.
What’s more, officials in Portland insist that the campaign to cut carbon emissions has entailed no significant economic price, and on the contrary has brought the city huge benefits: less tax money spent on energy, more convenient transportation, a greener city, and expertise in energy efficiency that is helping local businesses win contracts worldwide.

While the President uses the bully pulpit to discredit global warming and its entirely logical solutions, Portland has (along with other cities) a working solution.

The ACLU put out this report (PDF) demonstrating the targeting of science, but like Portland, its message is drowned out by the President’s ostrich act.

One of the President’s second-term priorities is legal reform, in effect restricting the rights of Americans to pursue relief in court. Upon the recent passage of legislation in the House that would cap “pain and suffering” and malpractice awards, Bush had this to say:

“The nation’s medical liability system is badly broken, as frivolous lawsuits are threatening access to quality health care and raising health care costs for all Americans,” Bush said in a statement. “The medical liability crisis is driving up health care costs through higher insurance premiums, higher medical bills and the practice of defensive medicine.”

And of course his invented crisis completely overshadowed the facts that run contrary:

The Texas study found little to support those assertions. By virtually any measure — from number of claims filed to damages paid out — the data reflect amazing stability in the tort system.
[…]
“It’s very hard to take the position malpractice is a major factor in the increases in the cost of health care. The actual cost of malpractice payouts is really quite modest.”

Again, the he said / she said game works to further the goals of the administration while keeping citizens in the dark.

In each case, independent, non-partisan facts were available (some provided by the government itself), but were outweighed by simple poll-tested phrases repeated by the President. The disingenuousness is bad enough when it comes from the legions of true believers who wouldn’t know a fact if their saviour came back to life and personally handed them one on a pillow made of clouds. But coming from a man who supposedly graduated from Yale and received a Harvard MBA, it’s Presidential malpractice. The reason that there is a federal bureaucracy is to remove opinion from major decisions and replace it with fact and institutional memory. This administration uses ideology and opinion to trump their career professionals’ advice and influence the national debate. They’d be considered crackpots if they weren’t in power, but because they are, their nonsense passes through the media whole.

As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes…everyone’s got one. Unfortunately, the President has is the biggest one of all.