March 27, 2001

4:52 AM

Bush Tries to Change Advisor's Mind on pollution policy. That does not work. President Bush does what he wants. EPA leaks Witman's Private Memo.
posted by vanderwal (19 comments total)

And this surprises you....why?
posted by mac at 6:09 AM on March 27, 2001

And this surprises you....why?
posted by mac at 6:09 AM on March 27, 2001

oops - sorry - I hit the "redundancy" button.
posted by mac at 6:12 AM on March 27, 2001

This surprises me because Christie Whitman, of all people, was trying to do the right thing (politically). Of course, she's probably about as interested in reforming pollution policy as Dubya. But she was at least smart enough to know that this will affect our standing in the world. After she patted down that "suspect" I never would have guessed she had the political savvy to make such an informed recommendation.
posted by rklawler at 6:54 AM on March 27, 2001

Read my lips.....no new gasses. I am fortunate enough to live in Texas, former home of Bushology. I truly believe this man is the antichrist.
posted by bradth27 at 6:55 AM on March 27, 2001

What amazes me is that Ms Whitman eats crow and bounces along, all the while knowing she has been made to be a total fool and a tool of those above her.
Now if she truly needed work, a decent salary, there would be some undrstanding--she would suck up the way I do--but she has made sufficient money as Governor of N.J and her connections could get her decent work elsewhere.
Why hasn't she got the guts to speak up and quit, knowing full well that we have lost respect on environmental issues with allies and scientists etc.?
posted by Postroad at 7:20 AM on March 27, 2001

Makes me glad I'm Canadian. Of course our Prime Minister isn't much better. :P
posted by derb at 7:44 AM on March 27, 2001

That you're already getting leaks suggests that even with the musical chairs at the White House, Dubbo might face more opposition from within his "big gubmint" than from the Dems. I can see the EPA being replaced with a Corporate Protection Agency pretty damn quick.
posted by holgate at 7:55 AM on March 27, 2001

It didn't take long to dispel the notion that the Bush White House was staffed by people who were too serious and responsible to leak to the press.
posted by rcade at 8:11 AM on March 27, 2001

I'm mostly surprised that this leaked -- Cheney's defense team did an excellent job of closing ranks after Powell broke away from the received wisdom about sanctions on Iraq, and if nothing else the Bush administration had been doing quite well at downplaying the importance of their internal disagreements. Maybe this was a calculated leak designed to make Whitman look weak? If so, chalk one up for the Greening Earth Society boys.
posted by snarkout at 8:16 AM on March 27, 2001

Newsflash: President makes stupid decision! And the EPA, under Bush, is sure to be cleared of all Kyoto nuts in favor of industry fluffers with no gag reflexes.

I was going to get pissed about your baiting, aaron, until I realized two things: (1) Hey, I've done it myself, and (2) Hey, I can do it again, right now! ;)
posted by Skot at 9:56 AM on March 27, 2001

Last time I checked, the president is advised by his cabinet, not controlled by it. And the EPA, by definition, is filled with bureaucrats who tend to lean towards being Kyoto nuts. God knows how many low-levellers from the Clinton Administration are still crawling around there; any one of them could have leaked this memo.

It was a memo to the president, Aaron, which makes it seem likely that it was a member of Bush's staff who leaked it or someone fairly high-level at the EPA. But I've never worked at the White House -- it's possible that memos from cabinet officials to the President go through all sorts of hands, although that's not how I imagine it.

And it's mostly interesting to political-junkie me because it suggests that someone wanted to make Whitman look bad. I'd think that you'd want your boy in Washington to keep any infighting out of the newspaper, but maybe you think showing up the EPA is a valid tradeoff; mostly I'm guessing it gives journalists a hook upon which to hang stories about Bush's relationship to the fossil fuels industry and whether Whitman's a figurehead.

(And I'm adding "wingnut" to my list of official Aaron-approved non-hatespeech terms that I can use when discussing political figures. Sweet. Dan Burton, that wingnut!)
posted by snarkout at 10:04 AM on March 27, 2001

Recognizing that global warming threatens life on earth = Bowing to junior-high-school-like peer pressure? I'm trying to think of an appropriate comeback for that, but I'm so appalled by the shortsighted selfishness of it I'm drawing a blank.
posted by owen at 11:27 AM on March 27, 2001

Stating one's opinion = baiting???
posted by fooljay at 11:47 AM on March 27, 2001

Fooljay: no, of course not, but I'd say that terms like "environmental wingnut" and innuendo about "junior-high-school-like peer pressure" are rather baiting terms designed to elicit an emotional response. But I also tried to make clear that I was just tweaking aaron a little over something that we all tend to do on occasion . . . I wasn't really anywhere close to genuinely upset.
posted by Skot at 11:57 AM on March 27, 2001

Alistair Cooke, not the most liberal character in his nineties, but a good judge of presidents past, quoted another journo last week: "The president has demonstrated, if not proclaimed, that since the votes cast for him were overwhelmingly by conservatives who wished him to be a conservative president, by jiminy - as his father would say - he is going to be one."

It's the president's decision as to whether the US is going to bow to junior-high-school-like peer pressure. (Answer: Not much anymore. Heh heh.)

aaron, you know the wimpy kids who stand behind the school bully, cheering him on? That's you, that is.
posted by holgate at 12:02 PM on March 27, 2001

Skot beat me to it, but I don't like to throw away posts, so...

Stating one's opinion = baiting???

I think it's fair to use the term "baiting" when an argument is reduced to calling people names. "You support the Kyoto treaty? Then you're a nut!" is the message an environmentalist, however reasonable and sane their approach might be, would probably read from aaron's post. Name-calling tends to provoke people to respond back in a similarly immature fashion. I would call that baiting.
posted by daveadams at 12:13 PM on March 27, 2001

U.S. Pulls out of Kyoto treaty, and despite what she wrote in her memo, Whitman must publicly defend the decision.
posted by ewagoner at 9:20 AM on March 28, 2001