This is really no surprise -- they've been trying to de-rail the litigation since taking office in 2001. And apparently, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, Jr. has been taking an interest in the case -- which wouldn't be a big deal except that McCallum was a partner in a law firm in Atlanta that represented one of the big defendants, R.J. Reynolds. Justice department officials assure us that McCallum wasn't participating in the lawsuit; he just showed up in court during closing arguments. I guess he was just saying Hi to old friends. Yeah, that's it.
My favorite quotation in the Times article comes from some unnamed Justice department official who justifies the $10 billion figure by saying:
"This is not politics. This is exactly the contrary. This is trying
to stay within the law and trying to stay within a decision with which we
disagreed."
Trying to stay within a decision with which we disagreed? I'm sorry -- isn't that politics?
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Other items in today's NYTs that I thought you would enjoy (given your current substantive interests) are two pieces centering on Philip Cooney, the Chief of Staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Each piece (one an article and one an editorial) focused on his inexprience and his non-scientist status and both highlight "sound science," editorial authority, and pushing the executive's policies. When considering who is who in countermovements, the role of social control agents should not be forgotten. I doubt that Cooney is a due's paying member of an anti-environmental movement; but he certainly participates in the colonization of the lifeworld.
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