When Republicans were ... Green (Dallas Morning News)

[struggle4progress]

Younger Americans may be skeptical that conservation and conservatism were ever acquainted in the first place. Skepticism is understandable, especially when the party of Theodore Roosevelt and fiscal responsibility sometimes seems to have morphed into the party of Tom DeLay and maxing out the national credit card. This weird Washington ideology of reactionary populism, crony capitalism and eat-up-the-seed-corn delusionism propagates the idea that nature is a vast left-wing conspiracy. <snip>

Several weeks ago, The Economist magazine urged President Bush to make a serious run at being a conservationist. The magazine cited conservation achievements from Republican leaders of yore. And it discussed how conservation matches up with ideals that any conservative ought to find appealing, such as national security, economic strength, taking pride in our country's natural beauty, carrying out our stewardship duties to God's creation and the impacts of toxic pollution on the unborn.

Theodore Roosevelt, a great Republican president, .. said: "Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of ensuring the safety and continuance of the nation."

How is that relevant today? The only way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil is to lessen our dependence on oil, period. By using so much oil, we are failing to heed George Washington's warning about the dangers of foreign entanglements. We are funding both sides of the war on terrorism. We are giving our money to the world's worst governments. We are involving ourselves in old blood feuds in strange lands that we don't understand well. And we are sowing the seeds of future conflicts for those last pots of black gold in the Middle East. <snip>

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/040305dnedidipeso.3532f.html

This sort of stuff appearing in a rightwing Texas rag like the DMN suggests yet another way the GOP could be splitting apart at the seams. And I enjoyed the opening slap at "Bugsy" DeLay ...

[pop goes the weasel]

1. Oh, how I hope you are right

But they have worked so hard at convincing the uneducated that enviromentalism is a "vast left-wing conspiracy" that I think they have come to believe it themselves.