US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 27, Catastrophic Failure: Enron, Katrina & Politics in the mid-2000s (Con't)

In his testimony, Dr. [Richard] Carmona, [Bush's Surgeon General] said that at first he was so politically naïve that he had little idea how inappropriate the administration’s actions were. He eventually consulted six previous surgeons general, Republican and Democratic, and all agreed, he said, that he faced more political interference than they had. On issue after issue, Dr. Carmona said, the administration made decisions about important public health issues based solely on political considerations, not scientific ones. “I was told to stay away from those because we’ve already decided which way we want to go,” Dr. Carmona said. He described attending a meeting of top officials in which the subject of global warming was discussed. The officials concluded that global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said. “And I said to myself, ‘I realize why I’ve been invited. They want me to discuss the science because they obviously don’t understand the science,’ ” he said. “I was never invited back.”

—Gardner Harris, "Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised", The New York Times, July 7, 2007

Introduction to (and explanation of) this quote series can be found here.  Read this tag to see all of them.