The Bush War on Science: SOTU Edition

The State of the Union address promises a new George W. Bush -- talking about health care, energy independence, and other topics that his administration has ignored for too long.

But already, we know that the new Bush is the same as the old Bush. Sitting in the First Lady's box will be Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder of the Baby Einstein juggernaut. Aigner-Clark's great innovation was to take random "baby-friendly" images pair them with classical music and convince a generation of parents that this was good for your child.

Oh, if it were only so!

The "Mozart effect" underlying these products has been proven to be a sham (not to mention that the original experiments never tested the effect of classical music on children). Exposing small children to television may be the cause for all those children running around with ADD. And some have gone so far as to blame TV watching among small kids for the uptick in autism rates.

In the reality-based world, Baby Einstein actually isn't that good for your kids. Yet, Aigner-Clark is given the seat of honor.It makes you wonder if someone in the White House watched too much TV growing up.