Believe in Magic: "I did not alter that scientific report!"

"Snicker, snicker."
Last Friday night we went to see Frank Caliendo at the Palm Beach Improv. He does an awesome impression of the Decider.

Today Senator Waxman said the White House has documents that prove they have been deliberately altering documents that deal with scientists' professional judgments surrounding global warming.

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," Waxman said.

CNN

What's going on here? Didn't we find out about this back in June of 2005? Don't you remember the whistle blower who ratted on Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality for altering a report? The whole thing came out in the news and is well documented.

Maybe we believed the scientist Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who defended the editing as necessary for "consistency." Ebell tried to offer a dodge saying that the report was cleared by several governmental agencies. Unfortunately a "whistleblower who resigned in March from the government office that coordinates federal climate change programs, made the documents — showing handwritten edits by Cooney — available to the Project on Government Accountability and, in turn, to news media."


Or maybe we believed the White House representative when she said, "He's not a cleared spokesman..."

Cooney was hired by Exxon within a week.

So what does this have to do with today?
This:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

The NYT

Need I say more? What's next? A government news agency called The Newserator.