Gerberding and Her Censors

The Associated Press yesterday reported that the administration's censors inside the Office of Management and Budget changed testimony given by Julie Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, on the impact of global warming on health. Today's New York Times and Washington Post report that she's okay with that.

"I said everything I needed to say," she said.

Democrats in Congress and public interest groups like Physicians for Social Responsibility are attacking the White House for its political interference with science. But that charge is growing stale. We know where the Bush administration stands on the role of science in policymaking. It's opposed to using it if it stands in the way of the special interests it chooses to represent.

The more interesting question in this flap is where does Julie Gerberding stand? Doesn't there come a point where public officials, especially those charged with protecting public health, have a larger responsibility than protecting their own careers? The issue is not whether the nuances of how global warming may impact public health were sufficiently aired in a single hearing on Capitol Hill.

The more important long-term issue worth raising, especially as we contemplate the post-Bush years, is what rules should govern the relationship between high government officials and the politicians at whose pleasure they serve. Of course presidents get to appoint their cabinet members and hundreds of other high-ranking officials across the government. But once they get in those positions, their first loyalty should be to what is in the best interests of the American people. When a White House -- any White House -- steps in to manipulate the performance of that job for political reasons, you're on the slippery slope to the next Katrina and "you're doing a heckuva job, Brownie."

The political police had no business editing the remarks of the nation's highest-ranking public health official. Even before it became publicly known, she should have resigned her post in protest. This incident tells us more about Julie Gerberding than it does about the Bush administration, whose views on science and global warming are well known.