Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Foxes watching the hen house?

Ok, it seems I'm a bit behind the times on keeping up with politcal news. I was surprised today while reading an article about alleged censoring by the White House of scientists reporting global warming when I came across this quote:

"Cooney, who was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned in 2005 to work for oil giant ExxonMobil."

So let me get this straight. A guy who used to work as a lobbyist for oil companies was appointed chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality??? Is this some kind of joke? Talk about a conflict of interest! How could someone in good conscience do such a thing? Could the president seriously think, "Now this is the guy who will do the best job looking after the environment..."? And to think I actually thought Bush sounded like a reasonable guy when he gave his state of the union address last week.

Ok, I suppose there's no sense for me to get all worked up about it - this all was from a couple years ago - the oil guy has since resigned to go back to working for oil companies - but sheesh! That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a long time.

Am I missing something here?