You can hear an interview with George Deutsche, the boy wonder who just resigned from NASA because he lied on his resume about having graduated from Texas A&M, here. It's pretty funny stuff. I especially like his defense of having lied on his resume.
Host: Was it public, I mean, it was pretty much known when you were at the Bush campaign, when you were working for the Bush campaign, that you had left school to come work for the Bush campaign.
Deutsche: It was known that I, uh, was an undergrad when I was with the Bush campaign. It was known that I was an undergrad when I worked for the inaugural committee. When NASA hired me, they knew that I was an undergrad. The only real, uh, the only room here for misinterpretation could be my resume. And I, you know, if there, if my resume is misleading, I take responsibility for that, no question, I do. Um, and I didn't never mean for that to happen. But I have never ever lied about my status, I have never tried to misrepresent that to anyone. If my resume was misleading, I take, I take responsibility, but that's not it, it's not about my resume. It's about this larger issue, it's about the agenda of global warming, and how these people are willing to resort to smearing a 24 year old junior appointee in an effort to just get one step ahead in their agenda, to get a little bit more face time in the media.
He then goes on to claim that he resigned on his own not because of the lies on his resume but because "I was being smeared, my integrity and credibility were being questioned, and as a human being, as a human being, I just could not take it anymore." On how many levels could this be idiotic at the same time?
First of all, you've gotta love the rationalization that yes, he did falsify his resume and he "takes responsibility" for that, but he "never ever tried to misrepresent that to anyone". I mean, unless you count the resume. Apparently this is the reverse of the old maxim that an oral contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Sure, he wrote a resume that claimed he had graduated when he didn't, but he didn't try to misrepresent the reality that he hadn't graduated.
Second of all, the revelation that he had lied on his resume didn't come from those evil global warming scientists with an agenda, it came from Nick Anthis, a Texas A&M graduate now at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship studying biochemistry. And George, I've got news for you. If you lied on your resume - and you did - then pointing out that you lied on your resume is not a "smear" and your integrity and credibility should be questioned. You weren't smeared, you were caught in a lie.
- Log in to post comments
I love the word misinterpretation. I mean, just because you claim something on your resume doesn't automatically mean that's what you claim. That's only one possible interpretation.
And one has to wonder how this "24 year old junior appointee" with no apparent background whatsoever can know the first thing about the science behind global warming.
The best part is when he accuses those opposed to him of playing partisan politics. Luckily I own the Mega 10000 version of the Irony Meter, or it would have busted wide open.
Most people in the real world would think that altering a SCIENCE agency's output in the areas of SCIENCE where that agency is expert in the name of RELIGION would also harm one's integrity and credibility.
Of course, we all know that our young ideologues don't live in the real world....
Who knows, maybe George will appear on the Letterman show to explain his tax returns.
I find it interesting that he seems to feel that noticing that his credentials are falsified is "smearing", but claiming that
appears to not bother him at all. And just who are "these people"? People who read resumes? Scientists in general? Someone needs to install a new cognative dissonance meter in this guy...
"Someone needs to install a new cognative dissonance meter in this guy..."
You misspelled "conscience".
My stock phrase for these situations is, "He has degaussed his moral compass." Feel free to pass it on.
Nice one, I will have to remember that. But even with a conscience, you would think that a person of sufficient intelligence to get into university would spot the inherent irony in the attack he made. Well, maybe "think" is the wrong word -- hope, maybe?
So he didn't update his resume? Someone explain to me how that works. Is he going backward through time or something?
Ian-
Where did you get that quote from? That's perfect.
I saw it on the Bad Astronomer's Blog:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/
When NASA hired me, they knew that I was an undergrad.
These seems to be a bit of disingenuous spinning as well. He was according to even his own admission an "appointee" and thus would not have been "hired" by NASA, but rather assigned by the White House (who appointed him) to the post. Who at NASA knew he had not graduated?? It is highly unlikely that various NASA management and administration knew much more about him than what was in his resume, (that had to have been updated btw, if it said he was a graduate).
This doesn't begin to question his own claim of "junior" status whilst he seemed to feel perfectly comfortable controlling the speech of the Director of the Goddard Center as well as various publications from other NASA administrators.
You must realise that the notion that resumes should reflect actual qualifications is based on metaphysical and unprovable assumptions. These assumptions are never questioned simply because the support the current paradigm and political correctness. The resume issue has two sides, and it is vital to present both sides to the public, or we will be doing them a disservice.
How's that for a defence of lying in yor resume?
Staffan-
Freaking brilliant.
spyder says:
You're forgetting that George inhabits the backwards universe.
He had already written in his resume that he had graduated, while he was still a student. He was then in such a rush to join the Bush/Cheney campaign that he quit school, without graduating. When he says he forgot to update it, he meant he forgot to take out that blatant lie.
Which was a lie the second he wrote it, regardless what NASA later knew or did not know.