The Obama administration is looking to fill out its roster of appointments and executives for its various branches. There are various rumors floating around about this person being named to that seat and so on and so forth. Thus far, we know only a few executives in the White House specifically; two people from the Obama campaign have been given similar communications positions in the West Wing, and Rahm Emmanuel has accepted the job of White House Chief of Staff.
The rumor yesterday is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be asked to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and if he is, he has announced that he's ready to serve.
Kennedy is well-known as an anti-vaccination crusader who has gleefully deployed whatever psuedoscientific rationales he can find to push an agenda that will ultimately hurt our country. He has deliberately misquoted pharmaceutical industry documents, taken material out of contexts, and backed various fringe groups and individuals in an effort to force the conspiracy between the Centers for Disease Control, the American Association of Pediatric Physicians, and "big pharma" to cough up the
real story linking vaccination and autism.
Somehow, the fact that no one, anywhere, in any country on this planet, has yet backed his version of reality has in any way dismayed him.
In other places, Kennedy has said that Downs Syndrome is caused by air pollution, automakers long ago broke the 100MPG barrier but are keeping it a secret because they're in cahoots with the oil companies, that organic farms are "more efficient" than industrial farms, and that seven families "control virtually all the world's media." As head of the EPA, Kennedy would impose pollution limits on industry and farming that would roll us back to the 19th century in terms of production viability. I'm all for sensible pollution limits, but my idea of a liveable country does not include horse-and-buggies anymore.
Kennedy recently said that Hugo Chavez, the man currently running Venezuela into the ground even faster than our own administration succeeded in ruining this country, is "
The kind of leader my father and President Kennedy were looking for." I want my administration to talk to its enemies, to talk them down from the heights of outrage, but Kennedy seems more intent on kissing their asses.
ScienceBlogger
Orac has more (and more links) on why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should not be a candidate. He's kind and doesn't even mention Kennedy's
little problem with heroin. (I am not so kind.)
If you agree that Kennedy would be a bad choice to head the EPA and that he's better off as a strident, outsider activist voice than as managerial policy wonk, the
Obama Transition Team has generously given us
a page where we can make our voices heard.
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