Year 2, Month 8, Day 16: If This Ends Differently, I Will Be Extremely Surprised. Extremely.

The July 31 New York Times reports on Charles Monnet, the scientist who (along with Jeffrey Gleason) wrote the “dead-polar-bear” report that stirred things up among the Bushies. He’s been suspended on “integrity” issues, with the inquiry focusing on the very same report. Gee. Why does this not smell legit?

The federal government has suspended a wildlife biologist whose sightings of dead polar bears in Arctic waters became a rallying point for campaigners seeking to blunt the impact of global warming.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement notified the biologist, Charles Monnett, on July 18 that he had been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into “integrity issues,” according to a copy of a letter posted online by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Documents posted by the group indicate that the inquiry centers on a 2006 report that Dr. Monnett co-wrote on deaths among polar bears swimming in the Beaufort Sea.

Come on. What’s more likely? A grossly corrupt scientist — or a bureaucracy that doesn’t know what the fuck it’s doing and is staffed with stupid vengeful people? Maybe I’m an idealist about scientists, but I’ve seen a lot more vicious bureaucrats than I have corrupt research scientists. Sent July 31:

When government investigates scientists, the results are often comical at best and Kafkaesque at worst. Whereas the mechanisms of law and administration are readily susceptible to egregious misuse, those of scientific research are far harder to corrupt. The allegations of misconduct against Dr. Charles Monnet are likely to prove a singular example of this fact. Dr. Monnet, whose work was terribly inconvenient for the previous administration’s corporate sponsors, is probably the victim of a toxic combination: a scientifically ignorant bureaucrat with a grudge. We’ve heard this story before; it’s “climategate” — with bears. Although repeated investigations totally demolished the East Anglia non-scandal, the lies about it continue to spread. Similarly, we can expect eventual inquiry to vindicate Monnet and Gleason’s findings while their names nevertheless endure continued calumnies from the ignorant and vengeful. All of us are the losers thereby, for the world needs good scientists more than bad bureaucrats.

Warren Senders