Atrios and Josh explore the nutbird landscape inhabited by young GOP functionaries like George Deutsch. Deutsch himself contents that the scientists he was trying to censor have ties “all the way up to the top of the Democratic party” and were obsessed with embarrassing the president. The even scarier bit is in the second piece linked by Atrios:

The coalition government relied heavily on a revolving door of diplomats and other personnel who would leave just as they had begun to develop local knowledge and ties, and on a large cadre of eager young neophytes whose brashness often gave offense in a very age- and status-conscious society. One young political appointee (a 24-year-old Ivy League graduate) argued that Iraq should not enshrine judicial review in its constitution because it might lead to the legalization of abortion.