Two men were nominated by President Obama for prominent scientific positions in the federal government. One was dubbed "controversial," they other … not so much.
Nominee #1 is pro-choice, pro-ESCR, believes in evolution, campaigned for Pres. Obama and was the geneticist who led the effort to sequence the human genome. However, he is an admitted *gasp* evangelical Christian, who even wrote a book about his scientific work called "The Language of God."
Nominee #2 published a book in which he and his coauthors argued that because of the ever increasing population of the Earth, governments could take drastic measures like forced sterilization especially those who "contribute to social deterioration" and national governments could be superseded by a "Planetary Regime." The book argued [wrongly in spectacular fashion] that unless some draconian laws were implemented our civilization would not reach the 21st century, as we stood then.
Isn't it obvious which nominee should be described in newspapers articles as controversial and should have straw man riddled NY Times Op-Eds written about the dangers of his appointment? It just be just as obvious that the other man has simply been "drubbed by conservatives as overstating environmental perils."
Speaking of non-controversies, when would it be considered news worthy for a Supreme Court justice to say this in an interview on abortion:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was
concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations
that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be
then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt
would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really
want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the
other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been
altogether wrong. [emphasis mine]
You can only talk about eugenics for "populations that we don't want to have too many of" and it not be news if you are Science Czar John Holdren and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
[To be fair to both Holdren and Ginsburg, Holdren has somewhat distanced himself from his previous comments and the liberal writer for the Ginsburg piece said that the "we" in question is a collective, societal "we," not a "we" that includes Ginsburg. So she didn't say she supported eugenics. She was simply insinuating that those who opposed abortion could be persuaded by some eugenics talk. That makes it OK.]