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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (176434)	8/31/2001 12:58:33 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

From the LA Times.George W: Garbage In, Garbage Out By John Balzar In American politics, there are crystalline moments. Something small happens to sum up things bigger. Jimmy Carter fights off a "killer rabbit." Jerry Ford stumbles. Michael Dukakis rides in a tank. The elder George Bush puzzles over a modern cash register. To that, we can now add: George W. Bush designates a dump in Fresno as a national historic landmark. A single image, one deed, and all the preceding speechifying and posturing fade like afternoon clouds. The air grows quiet. Nothing more needs saying. Carter went down as weak. Ford as a bumbler. Dukakis as a geek. The elder Bush as out of touch. And now his son can be seen for what he is: Dirty George. Yes, Bush's Interior Department quickly pulled back on landmark designation once someone noted that the oozing, gaseous California dump was a Superfund site, which had poisoned the surrounding water and forced the closure of playgrounds. But too late. No brass plaque necessary to remember this flight of lunacy. Americans want to believe in a new president. It's the nature of democracy to hope for the rightness of our choice, even if it wasn't exactly our choice. But then there comes one of those moments. Wait, don't blame Bush! Interior Secretary Gail Norton did it! It was a mistake! Hey, this is the oldest "sanitary landfill" in the country. It was a dump-and-cover innovation imitated around the world. It deserves recognition! Dumbstruck silence. The fact is, Bush has turned his administration over to people who actually think to memorialize a 145-acre heap of rotting garbage as a notable part of our heritage. And it's not just the deed, which might be a minor lapse except it occurs when Americans of both parties wonder how an administration can be so utterly tone-deaf to concerns about stewardship and a clean environment. So, we despair. But let's also take heart. With a festering mound of trash to symbolize George W. Bush's view of America, greater scrutiny is apt to now befall the more serious outrages he envisions.