In a speech on the anniversary of the Sputnik launch, Hillary Clinton said today:
Fifty years ago, Sputnik marked the dawn of the Space Age and the
beginning of a new era filled with new challenges. Fifty years later,
there is no single, galvanizing event to steel our resolve and to lift
our eyes to the heavens. The challenges we face are more complex and
interconnected. From the rise of globalization to the threat of global
warming. These challenges require big ideas and bold thinking.
But instead of fostering a climate of discovery and
innovation, the Bush administration has declared war on science. The
record is breathtaking:
banning the most promising kinds of stem cell research, allowing
political appointees to censor studies on climate change, muzzling
global warming experts like Dr. James Hansen, overruling doctors and
the FDA on emergency contraception, suppressing and manipulating data
on mercury pollution, even delaying one report which found that 8
percent of women between 16 and 49 years of age have mercury levels in
their blood that could harm future children, denying the risks of
toxins like asbestos in the air after the 9/11 attacks, overruling
scientists who sought to protect animals under the Endangered Species
Act, eliminating scientific committees at the Department of Health and
Human Services that did not parrot the politically accepted ideology —
or packing those committees with industry insiders, altering scientific
tests on the lead content of children’s lunch boxes — and appointing a
lead industry consultant to a key panel formed by the Centers for
Disease Control, barring a USDA researcher from publishing or even
discussing his work on antibiotic resistant bacteria, censoring
government websites on breast cancer research, contraception, climate
change, and so much else.To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, this administration doesn’t make
decisions on facts. It makes facts based on decisions. And to further
paraphrase – my predecessor, the extraordinary late Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynahan, everyone is entitled to his own opinion but no one is
entitled to his own facts. For six and half years under President Bush,
it has been open season on open inquiry. They’ve tried to turn
Washington into an evidence-free zone.
A credible Presidential candidate who quotes Stephen Colbert! That oughta win her some votes on the college campuses.
Kit Stolz 