Another Day, Another Scandal

Kevin Drum is right, the Bush administration scandals are coming so thick and fast that they are merging in people's minds into one big meta-scandal. That's because there is nothing that this administration won't subordinate to petty political considerations. Nothing.

A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found.

Their report, sent to Congress this week by the department’s inspector general, does not accuse the official, Julie A. MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, of any crime. But it does find that she violated federal rules when she sent internal agency documents to industry lobbyists.

Ms. MacDonald, an engineer by training, has provoked complaints from some wildlife biologists and lawyers in the agency for aggressive advocacy for industries’ views of the science that underlies agency decisions.

...When the inspector general asked her “why she ignored or discounted” legal opinions from the regional offices, the report said, “MacDonald replied it was a matter of policy, it was what worked best, and it was the result of the risk balancing that takes place” between pursuing policy goals and ensuring decisions have an adequate basis.

Policy goals, apparently, that include sending internal government documents to Chevron Texaco email addresses and to a group which challenges endangered-species decisions.