Robert F Kennedy jr for Head of EPA? NO! He is Unqualified

updated without further comment

Mark Landy says Kennedy is unqualified.

Marc Landy, a Boston College political science professor who wrote a book on the EPA, said Robert Kennedy would be an “inappropriate” pick for the EPA post, which he described as “one of the hardest” public management jobs in government.

“It’s not a good place to make a kind of symbolic appointment,” Landy said yesterday. “You need a pro.”

The professor said Kennedy was an “estimable environmentalist” and consciousness raiser about the issue but he’s not a public manager. “It’s innappropriate. It’s wrong,” Landy said. “Government is not all about symbol and impulse, it’s an awful lot of grinding, managerial work.”

My letter to the transition team (with links added)

It has been widely reported that Robert F. Kennedy jr. will be offered a position in the Obama administration, probably heading the EPA.  I urge you NOT to make this appointment.  Kennedy is an anti-science ideologue.  We've just suffered through 8 years of such, we don't need another four.

Kennedy's anti-science is most noticeable in his position that vaccines cause autism, and a government cover-up is preventing the truth from being known.

Many scientists  have debunked his anti-science position in the past, most notably the physician and science blogger  Orac, at  Respectful Insolence July 17, 2005.

The current opposition to Kennedy's  serving in government comprises scientists, lawyers and lay people

1. Orac at Respectful Insolence lays out the evidence that Kennedy is an anti-science crank
2. Revere (a public health scientist) at Effect Measure:  RFKjr is an ideologue and will not rely on scientific evidence.
3. Steven Novella (a neuroscientist): Environmental change is all about the science, and RFKjr is anti-science.
4. Blake Stacey: Kennedy a terrible EPA choice.
5. Coturnix: Kennedy is an anti-science crank and should not be in the administration in any capacity.
6. Mike the Mad Biologist: Kennedy, as an anti-science crank, is unfit to serve.
7. Mike Dunford: Kennedy's willingness to politicize science makes him unfit for an Administration post.
8. Josh Rosenau: Kennedy's gullibility on science makes him unfit for the EPA, but there are several other good places for him in the administration.
9. Chad Orzel: Kennedy's conspiracy-theory spreading should disqualify him for the EPA
10. ScienceWoman: The change we need is competent appointees.  Kennedy is scientifically incompetent.
11. Pal, MD: Kennedy is a name, not a qualification.
12. ERV: Kennedy is completely anti-science.
13. Science Avenger: Kennedy's appointment would signal that Obama's administration is anti-science.
14. PZ Myers, biologist, at Pharyngula: No to Robert F. Kennedy, jr.

Non Scientists

1. Arthur Allen: Please Not Kennedy
2. Bradford Plumer at the New Republic: Robert F. Kennedy doesn't have the managerial skills to lead the EPA.
3. Brandon Kelm, Wired Magazine:  Kennedy is the weakest candidate, as he is anti-science.
4. Michael C. Moynihan: Kennedy is in favor of nationalizing the oil industry.
5. Politico: List of Kennedy's liabilities as a candidate
6. Logipundit: Kennedy's appointment would be a disaster
7. Seeking Aponia: Robert F. Kennedy jr. = Bad Science
8. Kristina Chew at Autism Vox: Robert F. Kennedy at EPA isn't supported by this autism mother.
9. Understanding Government: Robert F. Kennedy jr's anti-vaccination stance should prevent his appointment.
10. Matthew: Robert F. Kennedy is a promoter of pseudoscience.  No more of that in government, please.
11. RedState: Robert F. Kennedy jr is unfit to serve.
12. Flying Debris: Robert F. Kennedy is a seriously deranged crank.
13. Timothy Noah at Slate: Do not hire Robert Kennedy Jr. He's too partisan and kind of a nut when it comes to policy.
14. Ryan Sager: Robert F. Kennedy jr. would be a very bad appointment.
15. Darksyde at Daily Kos (with 835 comments) "A nascent administration adverse to drama, focused on creating unity, and committed to restoring scientific credibility, would be well advised to choose the most credible, qualified person they can find."  Kennedy isn't creditable or qualified.

Michael C. Moynihan accuses Kennedy of favoring nationalizing the oil industry.

Kennedy is a well-know 2004 election conspiracy theorist who is under the impression that we are all being held hostage in fascist America. Ho-hum. So would you be surprised to learn that RFK II is also a Chavista? Of course not!

Stayin' Alive deconstructs Kennedy on autism (from 2005)

• July 12 2005 That Thimerosal thing
• July 15 2005 Thimerosal and Kennedy Part I
• July 27 2005 Thimerosal and Kennedy Part II The Autism Epidemic
• August 16 2005 Thimerosal and Kennedy Part III Wrapping it Up
• June 3 2007 The Vaccine Court
• June 18 2007 A Compound Tragedy

Comments

[Vaklam]

Go, you! Way to jump on this. I'll write a letter, too.

[Anthony Henry Smith]

Keep RFK out of EPA

The job at the EPA calls for someone with a keen sense of both ethics and science. Kennedy is not that person.

The following letter was written in support of Robert H. Boyle (founder of Riverkeeper and author of "The Hudson River, A natural and unnatural history") and others who resigned from Riverkeeper rather than support R. F. Kennedy, Jr.'s compromise of the principle that ethics must never be separate from science.

This letter was first published in the Putnam County News and Recorder, Cold Spring, New York, on August 30, 2000 and they have carried it on their website ever since for which they have my thanks. (AHS, 2008)

Letters:

Supports Former Riverkeeper Board Members' Action
Editor,

The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers, Inc. supports Robert H. Boyle, former president of the Riverkeeper, Inc. and former Riverkeeper, Inc. board members John Fry, treasurer, Nancy Abraham, Kathryn Belous Boyle, Pat Crow, Theresa Hanczor, Robert Hodes, Ann Tonetti and Alexander Zagoreas in the action they have taken in resigning from Riverkeeper in opposition to the hiring of a convicted environmental felon to serve in the position of staff scientist on the staff of Riverkeeper.

In issuing this statement of support, The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers wishes to emphasize that ethics cannot be separated from science and that the environmental movement will prosper best in an atmosphere of demonstrated personal responsibility and earned mutual respect.

We encourage individuals as well as environmental organizations to join us in similar expressions of support for the principled stand taken by Boyle and fellow board members in their defense of the ethical integrity of the environmental movement here in the Hudson River Valley.

Boyle and 8 of the 22 Riverkeeper board members resigned from Riverkeeper, Inc. in protest of the hiring of William Wegner. For eight years Wegner operated a ring of smugglers who stole bird eggs directly from the nests of protected cockatoo species in Australia. Wegner and his ring then smuggled the eggs by air to the United States. Birds that hatched and survived were then sold for as much as $12,500.00 each. A federal judge accepted Wegner's plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy and tax fraud and sentenced him to five years in prison. The judge also found that Wegner had attempted to obstruct justice by committing perjury at the trial of a co-defendant Wegner paid a $10,000.00 fine.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated that everyone deserves a second chance and notes that he himself had been given a second chance in that he had once been convicted of a drug offense.

We note, however, that Kennedy's offense was essentially a victimless crime while Wegner's offense was a crime against the environment, the people of Australia, the people of the United States and against the birds. In order to avoid detection during the flight, smugglers flushed newly hatched chicks down the plane's toilet

Although Wegner has been convicted and served his sentence, nothing he or anyone else can do will correct the damage he has done or make his victims whole again.

Wegner's prison sentence seems to have done little to improve his ethical sense. The resume Wegner submitted to Riverkeeper accounts for his period of incarceration without referring to the fact of the incarceration itself Wegner describes work he performed and omits the significant information that he performed this work while he was serving time as a prison inmate.

Kennedy overstepped his position as attorney for Riverkeeper when, in November of 1999, he hired Wegner. Boyle terminated Wegner after learning of the hiring and upon review of Wegner's resume, court records and media accounts. The matter came to a climax at a board meeting on June 20th when Kennedy insisted that Wegner be rehired over Boyle's objection.

While we hope Riverkeeper continues to work to produce changed human beings who think and act differently in regard to the Hudson River and all that pertains to it, we also recognize the primary mission of Riverkeeper is not the rehabilitation of Wegner or of those like him.

Sincerely,

Anthony Henry Smith
Fishkill

(for The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers)
(Fishkill Ridge Community Heritage, a separate organization, has also supported this letter from their beginning.)

[Tom G]

Speaking as someone who contracted polio at the age of six before the Sauk vaccine was introduced, I have a question. How, after all their pious denunciations of a conservative “war on science” can Barack Obama and his team be considering this notorious anti-vaccine crank to lead a key agency like the EPA? RFK Jr. is a truly dangerous individual. That Obama has floated his name is nothing short of obscene. I’ll remember this the next time I hear some progressive bloviating about the importance of “good science.”

[Violet]

Geez people this about the EPA not Autism or vaccines. Don't you understand that the environment is so f'd up from 8 years of idiot Bush that on Mr. Kennedy's worse day, he could show up high on Heroin and have Autism and it would be a thousand times better than what we have now?!

He truly cares about the environment and wants to do something about it, and right now, nobody else does, so that makes him best for the job.