Lysenkoism and Intellectual Dishonesty In the Bush Administration:
Episode MMXVIII: Porter Goss and the CIA

Some people think that the defining characteristic of this administration is its incompetence, but that's far from the truth. Its defining characteristic is irresponsibility--where that includes dishonesty, and where these together include intellectual irresponsibility and intellectual dishonesty. This administration gained power as a result of its dishonest campaign to prevent the votes in the election of 2000 from being counted, and that set the tone for many of its subsequent actions, most notably its reprehensible marketing campaign in favor of invading Iraq.

The Bush administration has also been known for another manifestation of intellectual dishonesty, it's Lysenkoism. On sex education, global warning, and a host of other issues, this administration has ignored or fought against scientific evidence when it found that evidence unpleasant or inconvenient.

According to many sources, Porter Goss's appointment and tenure at the CIA has been yet another chapter in this contemporary immorality tale. Drum has been on this for awhile, and gives us this today. If it is true that the CIA has been undermined in the name of ideological purification and conservative correctness, then this could be the crowning achievement in the disaster that has been the Bush presidency--of perhaps even greater significance for our security than the disastrous Iraq war.

As I've noted before, the CIA is basically engaged in conducting a kind of covert social science. They seek to understand, explain, and predict the actions, beliefs, intentions, and motives of other important nations and groups. Good social science--like any good science--requires a good measure of objectivity and political neutrality. (Please--no lectures in the impossibility of perfect objectivity--nothing could be more irrelevant. Perfection is not the issue, and is not required.) The administration's devistation of the CIA is merely a special case of a more general phenomenon. This administration puts power and politics above truth and reason. This orientation manifested itself in their successful efforts to prevent a rational resolution to the recount debacle of 2000, in their failure to take al Qaeda seriously before 9/11, in their non-reality-based decision to invade Iraq, in their refusal to take global warming seriously, and in a whole host of other matters. There's nothing special about their treatment of the CIA.

This is not an aberration. This is who they are. No one familiar with the character of this administration should find its manipulation and evisceration of the CIA surprising. They hyperbolize about the threat of terrorism when that is politically convenient for them--but actions speak louder than words. And when it comes to real actions--such as their efforts to determine the character of the CIA--it is all too clear that facts and security takes a back seat to their ideological fantasies.