A New (and Unlikely) Tell-All (Kevin Burnett, whistleblower testifies today)

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. — Jason K. Burnett, Washington’s environmental whistle-blower du jour, is an example of a once rare, now almost common, phenomenon: a political appointee willing to tell much of what he knows of the inner workings of the formerly opaque Bush administration.

A lot of people in Washington want to hear what Jason K. Burnett has to say. Mr. Burnett in his new home in Carmel, Calif.
Mr. Burnett’s full pitcher of tales about the administration’s inner turmoil over air pollution regulation in general and climate change in particular has been poured deliberately, glass by glass, for a thirsty partisan crowd. More will be offered Tuesday when he appears before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Mr. Burnett’s increasingly public dealings with Democratic committee chairmen in Congress have brought unwelcome attention to the administration’s deliberations on climate change policy. In particular, Mr. Burnett has suggested that the Environmental Protection Agency’s views have been overridden by others in the administration doing industry’s bidding.

What remains curious is how Mr. Burnett, a contributor to Democratic candidates — including Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee — and a policy specialist who counts some of the wealth of Silicon Valley’s Packard family as his inheritance — came to be hired at the agency four years ago at the age of 27 as an adviser

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/us/22enviro.html?ref=us

This is pretty much a "shoot the messenger" piece. This kind of journalism used to be beneath the NY Times.