The Smithsonian is back in the news, subordinating science to the crackpot ideology and thieving rapacity of the Bush regime and its cronies

Good news: Smithsonian acting boss Cristian Samper doesn't seem
to be a crook. Bad news: he does seem to be a political hack.

I am so steamed, I can barely think straight, let alone write. In this spluttering state, about the best I can hope is to make sure everyone at least is aware of the story.

Back in June I called attention to the hideous scandal in which the Smithsonian Institution, perhaps the country's most important public repository of knowledge and inquiry, had been enmeshed by the sleazeball ethics of the Bush regime's Old Right-Wing Boy network.

They found themselves a pip for the post of Smithsonian secretary--the institution's director. This piece of work, one Lawrence M. Small, negotiated himself a contract that should by itself have landed everyone involved in prison, a contract whose grotesque overgenerosity the slimeball defended as merely what his august services, in particular his fund-raising genius, were worth. But of course it was all a lie. He spent a fortune on his alleged fund-raising, and brought in orders of magnitude less than his predecessor had on a tiny fraction of the budget (including his own salary).

Even if the guy hadn't been stealing--oh, I guess I haven't mentioned that yet, but yes, he was stealing--his appointment and tenure at the Smithsonian should have been a crime of a magnitude not just to justify but to require impeachment of the whole frigging regime, every last scumbag and toadying hanger-on infesting the executive branch of the federal government.

But the fact is, he was stealing, every dollar he could lay his grubby paws on, and he unleashed an equally incompetent and dishonest second-in-command, Sheila P. Burke, to loot the premises of every dollar she could extract as well. It's amazing that with all the time the two of them spent bleeding the Smithsonian, they also found time to centralize all decision-making unto themselves, and to make sure that all institutional decisions satisfied the most benighted and delusional right-wing crackpots.

Unfortunately for them, they got caught up in the Republican Culture of Corruption's wee miscalculation: that you could simply lie, cheat, and steal to your heart's content, and there would be no price to pay. Not quite. The RCOC bred such greedy, sloppy, downright clumsy crooks that even investigators with the hunting skills of Vice President Cheney had to land some of them. And sure enough, just as investigators were closing in on the Smithsonian Two, the pair vanished into the woodwork.

You'd think they'd be rotting away for the next 10 or 20 years in some cushy federal penitentiary, in addition to making restitution for all the money they stole, but as far as I know, neither has been the subject of any further legal inquiry. I guess that's the Cronies' Blood Oath:

"We take care of our own . . . er, up to a point."

Oh, naturally, there were some red faces among the regents of the Smithsonian, who were supposed to be overseeing its operation, and I guess they sort of were doing so, overseeing--to their way of thinking. They oversaw its politicizing and systematic looting by One of Their Own.

Well, the Smithsonian is back in the headlines. No, there's no indication that Lawrence Small's successor, Acting Secretary Cristian Samper, has been stealing. But internal rumblings about his stalwart politicizing of museum activities have now exploded publicly, as James V. Grimaldi and Jacqueline Trescott report in today's Washington Post: "Scientists Fault Climate Exhibit Changes." Their report begins:

Some government scientists have complained that officials at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History took steps to downplay global warming in a 2006 exhibit on the Arctic to avoid a political backlash, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The museum's director, Cristian Samper, ordered last-minute changes to the exhibit's script to add "scientific uncertainty" about climate change, according to internal documents and correspondence.

Scientists at other agencies collaborating on the project expressed in e-mails their belief that Smithsonian officials acted to avoid criticism from congressional appropriators and global-warming skeptics in the Bush administration. But Samper said in an interview last week that "there was no political pressure -- not from me, not from anyone."

Samper put the project on hold for six months in the fall of 2005 and ordered that the exhibition undergo further review by higher-level officials in other government agencies. Samper also asked for changes in the script and the sequence of the exhibit's panels to move the discussion of recent climate change further back in the presentation, records also show. The exhibit opened in April 2006 and closed in November of that year.

Appointments to the Smithsonian are totally political, and in fairness to the people who have to run the place, knowing how heavily they depend on Congress for funding, their operations can't be conducted without at least an awareness of political sensibilities. That much we all understand.

But in the Age of Bush, this translates to kowtowing to the farthest-right crazinesses to be found outside a mental institution. To people like Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, for example-- that unique blend of right-wing kook, environmental pillager, and thieving profiteer. Sure enough, Senator Ted's name comes up in the Post article.

If you read the whole of the article, and I really hope you will, you'll see that even with what little access the reporters have had so far to the inside workings of the Smithsonian, they've produced a powerfully credible reconstruction of the political perversion of its mission.

An exhibit exploring climate change in the Arctic, which was originally to have been called "Arctic Meltdown" (like that would ever have been allowed), was delayed and in the process watered down in the name of recognizing "the uncertainty of the science" of climate change--that all-too-familiar euphemistic catch phrase for "we spit on the science, which contradicts prejudices in which we have gigantic financial stakes, and if you give us time, we'll find flacks with degress who for the right price will say whatever we want about the science."

An operation of the scope of the Smithsonian, with so vital a scientific mission, employs large numbers of top-quality scientists, just as the federal government itself does. Unfortunately for them, the attempt to gain knowledge and understanding of the workings of the universe in which we live--is antithetical to Movement Conservatism, which is built on the worship of ignorance. And so in the Age of Bush at both the Smithsonian and in the federal government proper it has been necessary to subject those scientists to censorship by people who, we often find out, not only have no scientific background but can barely read and write.

Now, Acting Secretary Samper doesn't seem to fall quite into that category. Which makes it perhaps more appalling that he has been so willing to assume the role of anti-science political operative. The Post documents a couple of examples:

Before Samper's review, the exhibit's introduction panel stated, "Over the past 50 years, the average temperatures across the Arctic have risen by nearly twice as much as the global average." After Samper asked for changes, the entrance panel read, "The Earth's climate is changing -- and it always has."

On the fourth panel of the exhibit, this phrase was deleted: "If you want to see what the rest of the planet is going to see in the next generation, watch out for the Arctic in the next five to 10 years." That sentence was replaced with, "A warming Arctic may spur dramatic changes at the top of our planet."

And you know what really gets me? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's that when they're caught, whether it's ouright criminality or mere intellectual hooliganism, the culprits just lie their heads off--and they never seem to pay a price for the lies.

The crooks are all innocent right up to the moment they sign the incredibly lenient plea bargain. The traducers of truth hide behind "the uncertainty of science" despite their hatred for the very impulse to open and honest inquiry.

My guess is that the "Arctic Meltdown" exhibition is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and that if serious reporters pursue the story, they're going to find that it's just part of a pattern of political manipulation of the Smithsonian's activities. Already Grimaldi and Trescott note:

Samper, a candidate to become the 12th secretary of the Smithsonian following the ouster of Lawrence Small earlier this year, is scheduled to meet with the Board of Regents on Monday as they prepare to discuss another controversy: a $5 million donation from the American Petroleum Institute to fund the Natural History Museum's Ocean Initiative exhibit hall and Web site. Samper approved the gift offer and sent it to the regents, where final approval rests. Two leading regents have raised questions about the appearance of oil companies donating to a major marine exhibition.

I just think it's a shame, if not an actual crime, that all those good, competent people at the Smithsonian aren't being supported in their efforts to help us understand the scientific challenges that face us, and instead are forced to struggle to maintain even a shred of integrity.

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