Bush Goes for the Green

by Jim Hightower

Plain old "hypocrite" just doesn't do the job when describing the audacity of George W. Bush, who has suddenly started painting himself as "Mr. Green, The Environmentalist." What a hat full of horsefeathers; what a hoary hunk of chutzpah; what a grotesque, galloping glob of gall this guy is! Environmentalist? It's like naming a chainsaw Johnny Appleseed.

But there he was, just after April Fools Day, saying we have "a duty to be good stewards," opining to the TV cameras that "Prosperity will mean little if we leave future generations a world of polluted air."

Hello. This is the same Bush who is telling everyone that to know what he will do as president, we should look at what he's done in Texas? OK, let's look. He has allowed the worst air polluters in the state -- polluters who gave half-a-million bucks to his 1998 re-election campaign -- to comply with our clean air laws on a voluntary basis. Righto ... don't want to comply, don't have to. Bush is "Mr. Green" alright -- Money Green.

Then there's his choice to head the Texas enviro-protection agency: a guy who spent his past 30 years as a Monsanto chemical executive and who was a top official for the Texas chemical industry's lobbying group. So, with industry lapdogs like this in charge, it's no surprise that on Bush's watch, Houston has surpassed Los Angeles as the smoggiest city in the whole US of A, and Texas now has more disease-causing smog alerts than any other state. But Bush's environmental agency even killed a plan to issue smog health advisories to protect school children and other residents.

Bush's environmental record is so ugly he couldn't get it clean if we gave him a can of Comet and a wire brush ... no matter what lies he tells us.