Christine Todd Whitman's comments were attacked by a leading environmental scientist and blogger after she said incoming U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu may lack enough administrative experience. The blog post is titled "Do-nothing Whitman disses Nobelist Steven Chu."

Keep in mind that the blogger, Joe Romm, is one of the leading figures in the environmental movement today. He is not only the author of widely-respected ClimateProgress.org, but also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a former Asst Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Samples from Romm's post:

• You might think someone who had utterly failed in his or her job might have learned through humility to avoid criticizing others attempting a similar job. But not Bush's first EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman....

• Let's see. Whitman's effort to get Bush to keep his campaign promise for regulating greenhouse has emissions was crushed in a humiliating fashion by Dick Cheney - and Cheney in general ran circles around her on all environmental matters, even though she presumably had lots of administrative experience as New Jersey Governor. And she has the gall to diss a Nobel Prize winner who isn't even in the "academic world." He has been running a national laboratory that is actually part of the DOE family."
  

It gets much spicier after that. Read his full post if you're interested in this side of the story on Whitman's environmental credentials.

(A more flattering portrait of Whitman's was presented here by a Grist reporter on Dec 4)

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