http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/3649254.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3649226.html

    It all began, as so many of these stories do, with Bush administration cronyism. A bright-eyed young student of journalism at Texas A&M, one George Deutsch, found himself so inspired by the prospect of assisting in the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign that he dropped out of school to join it. His payoff, after the November victory of his heroes, was a position in public relations at NASA, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. You remember NASA-- the science and technology powerhouse which put the guys on the moon a while back, and which continues to carry out internationally respected scientific research on earth and space sciences.
    Once at NASA, young Deutsch engaged in an activity which might be termed, in East Texas, teaching his grandmother to suck eggs. To wit, he picked a public fight with NASA's preeminent climatologist, James Hansen, over what the agency has to say over global warming. To say that Deutsch was overmatched was an understatement. However, Deutsch blundered on, until it came to light recently that he claimed on his resume that he had actually graduated with a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M.
    The lie on his resume was enough to get Deutsch fired. There is a new and ominous note in this ridiculous little story, however. Deutsch now claims that there is a "culture war" at NASA.
    "Culture war" is a code phrase. One hears it on American religious radio programs all the time; it pops up on James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" weekday programs at least every couple of weeks, for example. It is used by religious conservatives to mean, "our political position is opposed by the ungodly," much as another code phrase, "law and order," was used by Nixon-era Republicans to mean, "we oppose civil rights." I have heard it invoked to attack abortion rights, all reliable means of modern contraception, gay and lesbian rights, and of course the accurate teaching of modern biology, and it resonates well with its usual audience. Perhaps the martial reference cheers the American religious conservatives whose only contact with actual war has ever been a few minutes of the History Channel viewed from the comfort of a La-z-Boy reclining chair.
    Invoking the specter of a "culture war" is a heap big juju among Bush's base, however. By doing so, Deutsch has implicitly demanded that he be taken seriously as a victim of the effete scientific and cultural elite. The matter of his lie on his resume is presumably to be left aside. It will be interesting to see whether the minimally educated O'Reillys and Limbaughs take up this arrogant puppy's cause.