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April 20, 2006
Blame Bush update
Hillary's celebrating Earth Day by blaming President Bush for every problem on earth:
Earth Day this Saturday offers us a moment to think about our environment and of the world around us - the air we breathe, the water we drink, the great natural treasures that we have inherited. I hope we will think of it as a day to rededicate ourselves to protecting our planet: our home for our children and their children.
(More below)
Because the threats to our environment and way of life are real and growing.
In the last five years, the Bush administration has left no major environmental law untouched in their push to deregulate, undermining or rolling back decades of regulations put in place to protect our heath. The results are all around us: more greenhouse gases, global warming, rising seas, more violent storms like Katrina. The endless demand for higher-priced oil is depleting world supplies, weakening our economic security, and worsening global warming.
We urgently need a national energy strategy that confronts these challenges head on. We certainly need more than one line in the State of the Union address.
We can kick our oil addiction and slow global climate change while making our economy more globally competitive and generating well paying jobs. We can develop renewable energy and energy efficiencies, protecting our wilderness from drilling and our shores from oil spills. We can create alternative energy industries, which will mean cleaner streams, healthier air, and fewer greenhouse gases.
We have the National Institutes of Health; why don't we have a National Institute of Energy?
Let oil companies be part of the solution by investing some of their historic profits, due partly to subsidies, into a strategic energy fund to develop alternative energy forms.
The strategic fund would spur the development and deployment of new energy technologies. We could increase consumer tax breaks to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, extend incentives to produce electricity from renewable sources, and make bio fuels more widely available.
We also need to develop an aggressive energy research program and a portfolio of cutting edge technologies to create new forms of marketable energy and energy conservation.
And if we take this seriously right now, we can see results in the near future, because so much of the technology -- like wind farms, solar energy cells, ethanol, and biodiesel -- already is on the brink of being commercially feasible.
What we need now is a commitment to our national and global environment and the practical energy strategy that will back up that commitment.
Our country needs more than a short-sighted, oil company-dependent energy policy that values drilling anywhere for oil more than it values protecting our planet.
We Americans have always thrived on challenges. It's in our blood. So let's challenge ourselves on this Earth Day. If we have confidence in our can-do tradition, we'll be ready to find new answers to our environmental and energy problems and build a healthier, safer future for our children.
Sincerely,
Lifelong Yankee Fan[Ed. Note: Her email doesn't really say this.]
Posted by bill at April 20, 2006 01:48 PM
Comments
I'm wondering: do you have any rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's letter here, or do you merely assume that by the mystical hatred surrounding Hillary Clinton's name, that all by itself the argument contained therein is null, void and invalid?
The simple fact is that you CAN'T argue against the points raised in this letter. When one of Bush's very first actions in office was to dismiss Kyoto, when Republican actions (such as approving riverboat casino laws and eliminating funds for the environmental protection of the Louisiana coastline) directly contributed to the destruction of New Orleans, when Bush's reaction to higher gas prices is nothing more than "temporarily" removing environmental regulations on fuel, when this government's reaction to more than two dozen scientific studies confirming that global warming is taking place and human actions are at least partially to blame, is a deafening silence (better, at least, than the virulently anti-scientific disavowal which is now seen on its face as preposterous), what the hell is so repugnant to you about Hillary's letter?
Ever heard "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"? That's an all-American, go-get-'em, proactive, simple philosophy that you and George Bush OUGHT to love. But there's not a damn thing that this president is doing. And thus he IS part of the problem. There's nothing in this letter that claims Bush is the sum and cause of the problems facing us -- but the evidence is extraordinarily clear that he is responsible for these problems continuing, and exacerbating, unabated. Often he encourages it, for example in signing the Orwellian-titled "Clean Skies" bill, which deregulated emissions controls for a host of industries which, I'm sure, paid the Republican Party quite well for the pleasure.
A real president, a president this country would be proud of, would look these challenges in the face. If Bush is so adamant about invading Iraq pre-emptively, why is he so reluctant to act pre-emptively upon a threat far greater?
C'mon, Citizen Journal. You're going to have to try better to attack Democrats with snide asides. It's a poor showing here.
Posted by: dedalus ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.citizen-journal.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 25, 2006 05:42 PM
It's hard to argue many of her points these days, and so I didn't even offer a rebuttal. She's so darn...moderate. But I am a touch leery of the rhetoric, given that Clinton's pre-Senate career exposes many of her present positions as unadulterated pandering. Why bother arguing with her? What's repugnant, and the point, is that the woman is pretending to be a moderate. I offer the evidence as it arrives.
I get the sense you're pro-environment. So am I. But your Senate rejected Kyoto, too, I believe unanimously, with JF Kerry on-board. That's because it's unfair to the US.
As for Iran (I presume you're talking about Iran), are you saying Bush should confront the Mullahs? How?
I'm hardly a W apologist. Stick around and I think you'll give me more credit than that. But if you're implying Clinton, or any of the refuse the Dems have offered lately might qualify as a "real" president, then you might get angry.
Posted by: BillLalor at April 26, 2006 03:47 PM
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