Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

Oh, perfect. Let's bury the bad news, and let it get worse, instead of paying attention. Why, it almost makes you think this administration is a wholely owned subsidiary of some fossil fuel concerns:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Read the story in the New York Times.

Far more dangerous than any one dramatic event, the continuing pattern of hiding accurate economic and scientific information from the American people does long-term damage to our country's future. The "enlightened" disappears from "enlightened self-interest." , Alexis de Tocqueville's description of the American democracy in action. But here's the truly weird part-- President Bush, who referred to de Tocqueville in his conversation with Bob Schieffer, considers the Frenchman his favorite political philosopher:

"I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think-tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the de Tocqueville model--what de Tocqueville saw in America. I would like for there to be a place where young scholars to come and write and think and articulate and opine and teach, but I really haven't beyond that. "

Perhaps the President means, writing and thinking and articulating and opining and teaching, without fear of contradiction by accurate data.