Reply #18: Proxmire redux..

[Fumesucker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire

Proxmire was famous for issuing his Golden Fleece Awards, which identified what he considered wasteful government spending, between 1975 and 1988. The first was awarded in 1975 to the National Science Foundation, for funding an $84,000 study on why people fall in love. Other Golden Fleece awards over the years were "awarded" to the Justice Department for conducting a study on why prisoners wanted to get out of jail, the National Institute of Mental Health to study a Peruvian brothel ("The researchers said they made repeated visits in the interests of accuracy," reported the New York Times), and the Federal Aviation Administration, for studying "the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, paying special attention to the 'length of the buttocks.'"<1> Proxmire was successful in stopping numerous science and academic projects which were, in his opinion, of dubious value.

Proxmire's critics claimed that some of his awards went to basic science projects that led to important breakthroughs, such as the Aspen Movie Map. For example, Proxmire was criticized in 1989 for the Aspen Movie Map incident by author Stewart Brand,<8> who accused Proxmire of recklessly attacking legitimate research for the crass purpose of furthering his own political career, with gross indifference as to whether his assertions were true or false as well as the long-term effects on American science and technology policy. Proxmire later apologized for several of those, including SETI.

One winner of the Golden Fleece Award, Ronald Hutchinson, was so outraged that he sued Proxmire for defamation in 1976. Proxmire claimed that his statements about Hutchinson's research were protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that that clause does not immunize members of Congress from liability for defamatory statements made outside of formal congressional proceedings (Hutchinson v. Proxmire, 443 U.S. 111 (1979)). The case was later settled out of court.<9>