Presto change-o!
Bush administration ignores reality and its own word in equal measure
AUSTIN, Texas -- You've got to hand it to those
clever little problem-solvers at the White House.
What a bunch of brainiacs. They have resolved the
entire problem of global warming: They cut it out of
the report!
This is genius. Everybody else is maundering on
about the oceans rising and the polar icecaps
melting and monster storms and hideous droughts,
and these guys just... edit it out.
"The editing eliminated references to many studies
concluding that warming is at least partly caused
by rising concentrations of smokestack and tailpipe
emissions, and could threaten health and
ecosystems," reports The New York Times. Presto
-- poof!
What do they care about health and ecosystems?
Think of the possibilities presented by this
ingenious solution. Let's edit out AIDS and all
problems with drugs both legal and illegal. We could
get rid of Libya and Syria this way -- take ‘em off
the maps. We can do away with unemployment,
the uninsured, heart disease, obesity and the
coming Social Security crunch. We could try editing
out death and taxes, but I don't think we should
overreach right away. Just start with something
simple, like years of scientific research on global
warming, and blue pencil that sucker out of
existence. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Inspiring as the remarkable Bush approach to
resolving global warming is -- the simplicity of it,
the beauty of it, I cannot get over it -- does it not
suggest a certain cavalier je ne sais quoi about the
future? What I mean is, is anybody there
concerned about what happens to people?
I realize the energy industry and auto industry and
other major campaign contributors would prefer to
think global warming does not exist, but how long
do you think it will take before reality catches up
with all of us? The White House editors (hi, Karl)
instead chose to insert a new study on global
non-warming funded by ... ta-da! ... the American
Petroleum Institute.
Dear old API, author of innumerable ringing
editorials on the desperate need to leave the oil
depletion allowance at 27 percent (certain Texas
newspapers that shall remain nameless used to run
those editorials without changing a single comma),
is really swell at representing the oil bidness. Fond
as I am of many of API lobbyists I have known over
the years, I am not quite sure I want those bozos
calling the shots on global warming. I have
watched them buy law and bend regulations for
decades now, and while I admire their chutzpah, I
am impelled to warn you: They have no scruples,
they have no decency, and they have no shame.
(See 50 years worth of reporting on the industry by
The Texas Observer.) Also, they lie.
Well now, danged if that doesn't bring us to the
subject of lying and the White House. Let us set
aside the vexing case of the missing weapons of
mass destruction and focus on a few items closer
to home. Anyone remember President Bush's 2002
State of the Union Address? No, no, not the one
where he said Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.
The one where he said he was going to expand
AmeriCorps by 50 percent, from 50,000 up to
75,000, because giving all those young people a
chance to work their way through college by doing
good for the community is so noble and effective.
"USA Freedom Corps will expand and improve the
good efforts of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps to
recruit more than 200,000 new volunteers," he
said.
Last week, Bush and Republicans in Congress cut
AmeriCorps by 80 percent. According to Jonathan
Alter in Newsweek, Congress, under pressure,
restored some of it, but it still leaves Americorps
with a 58 percent cut and tens of thousands of
fewer participants out there teaching poor kids to
read, helping old folks in nursing homes, setting up
community gardens, and a thousand other good
and useful tasks -- many of which get the young
people started on careers in that kind of work.
Alter notes that restoring AmeriCorps to its current
level would take $185 million, about one-half of one
percent of the president's latest tax cut for the
rich. The radical Republicans in Congress,
apparently egged on by a Heritage Foundation
study from April 2003, have decided AmeriCorps is
(gasp, shudder) a jobs program.
What have these people got against national
service?
Speaking of said tax cut, too bad about the
children of the working poor. Congress just
announced it's too busy to get around to restoring
the child tax credit to 6.5 million low-income
families (known to The Wall Street Journal as "lucky
duckies" because, you see, they pay little or no
income tax. They only pay 19 percent of their
meager incomes in other taxes.).
FYI: If you put "George W. Bush" and "lies" into the
Google search engine, you get 250,000 references
in nine-tenths of a second.
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