Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino demands apology from Barbara Boxer

authordefault
on

Earlier this week it was revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office deleted portions of Senate testimony to be given by Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding, on the public health impacts of climate change.

Today, Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino is demanding an apology from Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) over comments she directed at Perino in regards to the climate censorship scandal.

The spat arose over comments Senator Boxer made at a press conference yesterday:

“As I understand it, she [Perino] said, the draft information did not comport with that, the science that was in the IPCC report. This was a lie. And we proved it before. We had in the last press conference we did on this.”

In reaction, Perino told the press today that: “I have never said such a thing about a fellow public servant, and I wouldn’t if I didn’t have all the facts. I think I deserve an apology.”

But as Satyam Khanna at Think Progress points out, Perino did not tell the truth at the time when the climate censorship was first uncovered:

In reality, however, Boxer is right that the White House did not tell the truth about the evisceration of Gerberding’s testimony. Initially, Perino denied accusations that the testimony was edited, claiming it was not “watered down” — a blatant distortion given Burnett’s revelations. As Boxer noted, in October 2007, Perino claimed:

PERINO: But when you take a very complicated issue, like climate change science, and you have the International Panel on Climate Change, which reported last spring — this is a study that the United States largely funded, and that we embraced in its conclusions — as I understand it, in the draft there was broad characterizations about climate change science that didn’t align with the IPCC.

You can go here to read the back-story where you will also find a full version of the massive edits made to the Centers for Disease Control climate change report.

Related Posts

on

NextDecade, a company hoping to build an $11 billion LNG project in south Texas, submitted letters to FERC on behalf of nearly two dozen public officials.

NextDecade, a company hoping to build an $11 billion LNG project in south Texas, submitted letters to FERC on behalf of nearly two dozen public officials.
on

The latest vote was postponed after state senators considered shoring up the budget with a natural gas tax.

The latest vote was postponed after state senators considered shoring up the budget with a natural gas tax.
Opinion
on

The amount and scale of new pipelines envisioned to transport CO2 to planned carbon storage sites is hard to fathom — let alone the environmental justice impacts they foretell.

The amount and scale of new pipelines envisioned to transport CO2 to planned carbon storage sites is hard to fathom — let alone the environmental justice impacts they foretell.
on

Seven years after Fort McMurray inferno, John Vaillant sees ‘almost identical’ conditions and laments ‘avoidable’ blazes to come.

Seven years after Fort McMurray inferno, John Vaillant sees ‘almost identical’ conditions and laments ‘avoidable’ blazes to come.