Phil Plait missing the point

Phil Plait manages to have the facts right, but his conclusions wrong.  I like the guy, and this is a type of naivete that one sees a great deal with scientists.  Specifically, it's the title: Energy and science in America are in big, big trouble.  This is based on some of the more irritating Republican candidates' more irritating views.

  Plait's position is mirrored in this rather plaintive post: "Why isn't Science doing better under Obama?"  I'd like to home in on the following term:

Bush's anti-science regime

Ah, yes.  Who can forget the mini-Dark Age that was so terrible that eight years into it, Mario Cappechi took the Nobel Prize back to the University of Utah?  Where he leads one of the premier labs on Embryonic Stem Cells?

The effect of who sits in the White House on America's scientific achievement is basically nil.  Which is readily observable from the fact that the US has not been reduced to cavorting druids, death by stoning, and dung for dinner.

Rather timely, Nature has an article out about how throwing money at science doesn't necessarily get you more science or better science.

UPDATE:  Thought so.