Why Do Special Olympic Athletes Hate America?

Today’s testimony from the outgoing Surgeon General is probably the best one yet in the never-ending parade of scientists who don’t like the current government. Not only did your man Dr. Carmona (dude has one hell of a c.v., btw) testify that administration officials suppressed his reports on stem cells, contraception, global health and secondhand smoke and asked him to mention the President three times on each page of his speeches, but he also said that senior officials actually asked him why he would support the Special Olympics when the Kennedy family is involved in that charity.

I think that all future “The Administration is politicizing [x]” testimony has jumped the shark, because after the idea that it’s a worthwhile thing to diss mentally disabled people just so you can stop your ideological opponents from scoring points, where do you go from that?

This is an example of how far one’s leadership culture should extend. The President, spiteful and unsympathizing as he is, would not have given anyone specific orders to go and hate on Special Olympic athletes and families so the Kennedys would miss out on added support. The problem is that he seems to have let the suck-up culture run wild underneath him to the point that staffers would think, “Hey, dissing Special Olympics is a great idea,” and carry it out. I think we’ve all encountered the in-your-face, unprincipled one-upping type of staffers we’re talking about here—they’re a chance to use the awesome word “sniveling”—but it’s the leader’s job to set the tone and smack those people down so the honest people can be heard.

Meanwhile, only 19 more months!