T.R.? He’s No T.R. (Teddy Roosevelt) Editorial at The New York Times

[applegrove]

T.R.? He’s No T.R.
Editorial for NY Times
Published: February 11, 2007

"Whenever President Bush is being hammered for his environmental policies, as he has been recently for his timid approach to global warming, he heads for a national park to reveal a hidden kinship with nature and, in effect, to promise a new day.

He did so again last week, visiting Shenandoah National Park to announce a sizable increase in the National Park Service’s budget. The photo op elicited suggestions from Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that Mr. Bush was somehow channeling Teddy Roosevelt. From Tony Snow, the White House spokesman and resident fantasist, it prompted the incredible claim that Mr. Bush had in fact been “keenly committed both to environmentalism and conservationism from the start.”

From the start? The choice Mr. Bush faced on the day he took office was between two competing Republican approaches to environmental matters — the callous disregard for the country’s natural resources displayed during the Reagan years and the responsible stewardship of those same resources associated with Theodore Roosevelt. Mr. Bush unhesitatingly chose the former.

The result was an across-the-board antiregulatory crusade aimed not only at undoing Bill Clinton’s environmental legacy but also at weakening bedrock economic law stretching back to Richard Nixon. It was orchestrated by the ideologues and industry lobbyists whom Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney installed in nearly every important position where environmental policy is made. The one exception was Christie Whitman, who finally tired of being told to do industry’s bidding and retired to private life after two uncomfortable years as boss of the Environmental Protection Agency.

.......SNIP"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/opinion/11sun1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[Jackpine Radical]

1. A sign of how bad the Bushie "environmentalists" really have been

is that the writer was able, apparently with a straight face, to label Whitman as a "good guy."

[struggle4progress]

2. The Bush Record -- National Parks (NRDC)

... More pollution at national parks promised by Bush drilling juggernaut (01/28/05) ...
Snowmobiles revving up for Yellowstone again (10/15/04) ...
Bush administration rejects another new park (06/01/04) ...
Budget cuts hurting national parks, reports watchdog group (05/28/04) ...
Yellowstone bison slaughtered to please ranchers (03/31/04) ...
Budget cuts crippling national park system (03/16/04) ...
President making empty promises on parks funding, critics say (08/15/03) ...
Bush administration attacks world heritage status of Yellowstone (04/07/03) ...
Interior Department may privatize National Park Service (01/27/03) ...
Bush administration paves way for new roads in parks, wilderness (01/06/03) ...
Bush administration opens national park to drilling (11/22/02) ...

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/wildlife_parks.asp

Well, ya git th'idea ...