just another bad candidate

The White House and their allies in Congress and the press have made much of the opposition to G.W. Bush's nomination of Utah Governor Mike Leavitt for the post of head of the EPA. They insist that he is eminently qualified, and that all opposition is strictly "political."

They obviously don't know (or perhaps don't care) about Leavitt's environmental record in Utah. Scary stuff.

You know, I actually thought that Christine Todd Whitman was going to be a good EPA chief. Unfortunately she was overruled by the Bushies at every turn, and like Powell, made public statements to the contrary. Does anybody really believe that she resigned for any reason other than the obscene environmental positions this administration insists upon? Yes, of course, the wingnuts and Freepers probably believe that, but their minds are closed in regard to such issues.

Back to Leavitt. The Sierra Club (I know, don't start) has a good little piece on his record here. Sounds about right for a Shrub appointee, right down to the spite-firing of the DWR official who fined the Leavitt Family's fish farming operation for environmental violations that allowed the whirling disease to spread into the wild. Meanwhile, the whirling disease continues to spread.

As I intimated above when I provided the Sierra Club link, I don't always agree with their political positions. Of course I don't always agree with the National Rifle Association, either, but I am a member of that group. As a relative centrist, I find it necessary to support causes at both ends of the spectrum; if I didn't, I wouldn't be a centrist. There are few truly useful activist groups in the center. (It's hard to be activist when you're in the center - but when the Radical Right seems to be grabbing more power every day, it gets easier.)

Nevertheless, the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy provide essential color to the American tapestry, and they also provide a necessary counterbalance to the Evil Empire, i.e. the Bush Administration and their Corporate masters.

The Bushies, at the bidding of their Corporate masters, are doing their best to destroy all of the things that the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy stand for.

I contribute to the NRA because I cherish my right to keep and bear arms; a significant percentage of the membership of the NRA are hunters (and fishermen, also). What many of them, the ones who support any Republican over any Democrat, refuse to acknowledge is that our current administration (left unchecked) will destroy the environment. Hunting and fishing will become more challenging than ever, as the wildlife and fish disappear - killed by pollution, or displaced to the point of extinction by unregulated growth of industry and human habitation.

Lest you think that I am strictly partisan, let me tell you about a Republican success story. Environmentally, at least. His name is George Pataki; he is the Governor of New York State.

I held little hope for Mr. Pataki when he was elected, I must admit. After all, he is a Republican; the fact that he grew up in the country and still owned a farm didn't sway my opinion very much. (Yes, there are still rural areas in New York State: the vast majority of New York is rural. Agriculture is the largest industry in the state. Dairy products, apples, award-winning wine, grapes, cherries, peaches, onions ... the list goes on.)

Yet Governor Pataki has proven himself to be a great benefit to the State of New York in the environmental field.

The moral of this story? You can be a Republican and not destroy the environment.

On the subject of the Democrats, my advice to the NRA is to pay more attention to the positions of the individual Representatives and Senators. Don't paint all Democrats with the same brush. They don't all support the Brady Bill, and they definitely don't all want to take your guns away.

Did you know that Hillary Clinton was taught to shoot when she was a child? She had a relative with a vacation home in the Pocano Mountains, and she learned to shoot there. Never underestimate a person who has learned how to handle a long gun.

Of course, Rush wouldn't tell you that; he'd probably insist that it was a lie - but then he'd go to rehab (again) and come back to tell you that he must have been right, or there wouldn't have been such an uproar. Having had experience with the drugs he's accused of abusing, and a lot more experience with friends hooked on those drugs, it's probably the drugs talking. Which does not change the fact the Rush is a blowhard. He probably needs the drugs to salve his conscience.