One Less Sleazeball in the White House Last week I wrote that President Bush should fire Phillip Clooney, the former oil industry lobbyist who, as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had doctored reports to minimize the threat of global warming.

On Saturday—huh, I wonder why they announced it on Saturday?—the White House announced that Clooney resigned.

Here's a wonderful example of Washington double-speak for you:

Clooney's "departure was 'completely unrelated' to the disclosure,' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"'Mr. Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration,' she said. 'He'd accumulated many weeks of leave and decided to resign and take the summer off to spend time with his family.'"

(Harvard and Washington are now speaking the same language. Discuss.)

Ignore the pathetic disingenuousness of this statement. We can safely assume that Bush told Clooney that he'd become a liability and it was time for him to go.

But here's the way this announcement should have been made—with a statement from Bush saying, "As you all know, I have my doubts about global warming. Nonetheless, any member of my administration must reflect my stands on issues and not those of the special interest group for whom he used to work. Mr. Clooney should have known better. Now he does."

Wouldn't that be cool?

  ¶ 10:54 AM