Finally, a piece in a mainstream (if liberal) paper on the Bush environmental agenda, then, now, and speculatively in the year to come — and, of course, it’s to be found in the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Sunday Insight section. These days, the best overview reporting on the Bush administration, its actual agendas, and its depredations often seems to get done on op-ed and opinion pages, not in “news” sections. Versions of this piece, putting together some of what’s been done environmentally by this administration, offering a larger policy picture — should have appeared in just about every half-decent paper in America. But I’d hate to be holding the year-end contest for the best of such pieces. Tom
Attack of the Martian Machiavellis on Earth’s Environment
By Paul Mchugh, Chronicle Outdoors Writer
December 29, 2002
The San Francisco ChronicleA former Bush aide got his tail in a sling a few weeks ago by calling the White House cabal a crew of “Mayberry Machiavellis.”
John DiIulio — like others who dared launch a dart at the upper management of U.S.A. Inc. — was bathed immediately by presidential advisers in a mind- control death ray. Reconsidering his remarks (to Esquire magazine), he apologized.
As well he might. DiIulio was wrong. But only about the provenance. That Mayberry folksiness deployed by George W. Bush & Co. is a ruse. Truth is, this set of Machiavellis must come from Mars.
That’s the only explanation for their environmental policies.
Only an off-worlder, bent on devastating an ecology that supports all human economy, health and civilization would:
— Gut the 30-year-old Clean Water Act by redefining debris from mountaintop-removal coal mining as “fill” that can be freely dumped in creeks and streams.
To read more of Mchugh click here
A former Bush aide got his tail in a sling a few weeks ago by calling the White House cabal a crew of “Mayberry Machiavellis.”
John DiIulio — like others who dared launch a dart at the upper management of U.S.A. Inc. — was bathed immediately by presidential advisers in a mind- control death ray. Reconsidering his remarks (to Esquire magazine), he apologized.
As well he might. DiIulio was wrong. But only about the provenance. That Mayberry folksiness deployed by George W. Bush & Co. is a ruse. Truth is, this set of Machiavellis must come from Mars.
That’s the only explanation for their environmental policies.
Only an off-worlder, bent on devastating an ecology that supports all human economy, health and civilization would:
— Gut the 30-year-old Clean Water Act by redefining debris from mountaintop-removal coal mining as “fill” that can be freely dumped in creeks and streams.