Who would have thought that one day polar bears would be included in a topic of discussion involving such issues as responsibility, censorship and freedom of expression?
Perhaps you have been listening to the senseless brouhaha over a memo sent out to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists traveling to foreign countries to make sure they were authorized to speak about the U.S. official position on polar bears and global warming. The memo which evidently originated in Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s office has democrats in quite a stir claiming that this is another one of President Bush’s attempts at blocking representatives from speaking freely.
Reps. Bart Gordon of Tennessee and Brad Miller of North Carolina are leading the charge demanding that Kempthorne turn over documents that they believe will show Bush is censoring federal employees. This, according to the Washington Post.
This “appears to be the latest effort by the Bush Administration to block a full and free discussion of issues relating to climate change by the scientific community,” they wrote.
This is what the memo said.
“Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the Regional Director to the Director indicating who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears, including a statement of assurance that these individuals understand the Administration’s position on these issues.”
From this, some who would fall into the category labeled by many conservative writers as the “Bush Derangement Syndrome”, believe the President is censoring employees and taking away their freedom of expression. I call it being responsible but where does that fit these days in Washington?
In an interview with the head of USFWS, H. Dale Hall explains.
In an interview, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s director, H. Dale Hall, said the agency is not trying to censor scientists but cannot allow them to discuss subjects not on the agenda of official foreign meetings.
“The agenda is actually negotiated between these countries that are going to attend,” Hall said. “. . . you have to be extremely careful.”
But this kind of responsible foreign policy must be labeled by the democrats as stifling of one’s freedom of expression, as expressed by this former Clinton official.
But Deborah Williams, an Interior official in the Clinton administration who heads the advocacy group Alaska Conservation Solutions, said the directive amounts to stifling government scientists’ freedom of expression.
“These memos are an outrage, and do a great disservice to federal employees and to advancing discussion and knowledge on these critical issues,” said Williams, who provided the memos to news organizations this week.
From this we are to assume that the democrats believe that all representatives of the United States when traveling abroad on official business should be able to express their own personal beliefs to foreign dignitaries and feel the freedom to wander from an established agenda set by all participating parties. Does anybody not know what an official position or statement is? Or how meetings of this kind are run?
Think about this the next time you go to the polls.
Tom Remington
