Dec. 20, 2000: "Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."
April 14, 2001: "First, we would not accept a treaty [i.e., Kyoto] that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country."
June 4, 2002: "I read the report put out by the bureaucracy," Mr. Bush said dismissively when asked about the EPA report, adding that he still opposes the Kyoto Treaty.
Sept. 23, 2002: "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."
These are all quotes by President Bush, old Mr. Flip-Flop himself. Now, suddenly, the president has seen the light, become a convert - a literal born-again environmentalist.
Does this strike anyone besides me as nothing more than election politics? The Democrats have been beating this drum for more than the six years that President See-no-pollution, Hear-no-pollution, Speak-no-pollution has been in office. He's dissed the scientists, his own EPA folks, Al Gore and pretty much anyone with the temerity to suggest that humans contribute to the problem.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. This is a president who, along with his vice president, is up to his Fruit of the Looms in big oil money. If you read the recent report in the local daily papers, you found that Texas, where our illustrious leader was governor, is the leading polluter in the country. According to the federal Department of Energy, in 2003 Texas was responsible for 670.2 million metric tons of carbon monoxide being released into the air. Number two on the list was California with 388.9 million tons - just over half of what Texas spews into the atmosphere, and California has 36 million people compared to Texas' 23 million.
We shouldn't be surprised that this president, the one who says the jury is still out on the validity of evolution, has had his head stuck in the sand for six years over whether his, and a few million other SUVs, coal-fired plants, snowmobiles and idiotic devices like gas-powered leaf blowers might possibly be contributing to the warming problem.
With the Democrats in control of the Congress, with people like Henry Waxman looking into the backroom deals and misdeeds of this administration, and Democratic hopefuls for the presidential nomination breathing fire and brimstone over his failed policies on everything from education to the vacuous invasion of Iraq, Bush is suddenly sounding like a John Muir, or as if he's had a visitation from the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt.
This born-again, card-carrying Sierra Club president has become a champion of the environment; wanting to form an alliance with the world he's snubbed at every turn throughout his presidency, promising to reverse global warming. He's now in favor of safer water, improved MPG for automobiles and protected wetlands. He'll probably adopt a spotted owl any day now.
This is nothing more than trying to get out in front of the Democrats in the run-up to next year's presidential primaries. The moves he's making will let the Republican candidates tout his environmental policies as if he's taken this position, and they by association, since he set foot in the Oval Office in 2001. Oh yes - they also think we voters are too stupid to see what's going on, the same mistake they've made over and over for six years.
You might think I'm bitter - well, maybe a little - but the truth is that I'm happy to see him change his tune, even if it's insincere.
There's an old saying about someone doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons. That's what I see happening here. He's not suddenly pushing the environment because he cares; it's a purely political move, but if the end result is that we do get moving on cleaning up our planet, then in spite of his motives we'll be going in the right direction.
I just hope that, in 17 months, the voters of this country remember that what is going on today is nothing more than the deception and dishonesty that has defined this president's tenure in office.
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