2/25/2005
Gale Norton is Pissing Me Off
Interior Secretary Gale Norton snowmobiling through Yellowstone park last Friday.
I don't usually get pissed off on Fridays. We are mere hours, after all, from that great 48 period of comatosis, the weekend. Brought to you by Democrats, may I add.
But the more I read about Gale Norton, the more she pisses me off. Here's an example. (taken from Who's Lying... )
In 2001 Senator Frank Murkowski writes to Norton wondering what the caribou who live on the shelf where Cheney wants to drill are going to do. Norton writes back saying:
"Concentrated calving occurred primarily outside [ed: emphasis mine] of the 1002 area in 11 of the last 18 years."That sounds clear enough. No caribou, so no problem. The Washington Post looks into it, and apparently Norton (described as a "lifelong conservationist, public servant and advocate for bringing common sense solutions to environmental policy" in her official biography) got it exactly wrong. That's exactly where the caribou are concentrated. Here's what the Post said:
"But when Norton formally replied to the committee, she left out the agency's scientific data that suggested caribou could be affected by oil drilling, while including data that supported her case for exploration in the refuge, documents show. Norton also added data that were erroneous, stating that caribou calving has been concentrated outside the proposed drilling area in 11 of the last 18 years, when the opposite is true."Norton explains the error. She wrote outside in the letter to Murkowski, but she meant to say inside. Again, from the Washington Post:
"Norton spokesman Mark Pfeifle said her error was simply that -- an inadvertent substitution of "outside" for "inside" -- and noted that she has preached peer-reviewed science ever since she got to Washington. [ed: WTF? Is that a total non-sequitor, or is she saying that she depends on other people to catch her frequent mistakes?]Isn't funny how the one word that changes the entire meaning of her letter to Murkowski happens to be one she gets wrong. I'm assuming that's what happened. I'd really hate to believe she's a liar.
file under: anwr.
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