From the Washington Post:
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
This Story
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Bush is not only an expert in diplomacy, military strategy, and the economy, expert enough to overrule his advisers, but he knows more than the scientists about environmental science. Amazing!
Well, you see the trouble with multi-tasking is that some folk have a problem walking and thinking at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWhat would one expect from someone who claims to be a Christian but demonstrates no evidence of it? Interesting book review at Slate.
ReplyDeleteThe Episcopal Café this morning quotes from an article about Bush's religious beliefs, which can best be described as "Self-Help Methodism."
ReplyDeleteOne gets to the point where nothing surprises any more - which I suppose is one of the things these people bank on.
ReplyDeleteBit unkind of them to stick it on the poor Methodists, Ormonde. My mother used a 19th century expression, that I think we may have discussed here before, to describe folks who cobble-together their own religion as they go along. Felicitously, that expression is "Bush Baptist". Online search indicates that the term still exists in Australian English, where it now means "a fictitious religion, said as a reply when one does not want to divulge their true religion."
Seems to fit the bill. Maybe we can term him that?
Yes, I left out Bush's expertise in Christianity - especially in the practice of it. His knowledge in many areas is so vast that it would take too many words to touch upon all of it.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, DP, some of us in the US do have that difficulty.
Piskie, that's is an interesting book review. The good Billy Graham allowed his name to be used and manipulated by the politically powerful a tad too much for my taste.
Ormonde, he hasn't helped himself enough, IMHO.
Postscript on the term "Bush Baptist". The Macquarie Dictionary [of Australian English] defines it as "a person of doubtful religious persuasion", or "a person of vague but strong religious beliefs, not necessarily associated with a particular denomination". Seems to fit the bill, doesn't it?
ReplyDelete"Vague but strong religious beliefs"--boy, does that capture a huge swathe of American "belief" and piety. I know the phenomenon very well. [Shudder]
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine any denomination wanting to claim Bush and his strange notions of the practice of Christianity, but then, I have seen even stranger notions within the denominations - and not just the Baptists and the Methodists.
ReplyDelete"a person of doubtful religious persuasion" and " a person of vague but strong religious beliefs..." do work rather well to describe Bush's version of Christianity.
"vague and strong" seems something of an oxymoron to me. OCICBW.
For a behind-the-scenes look at more of the dirty details behind the President's interference with the EPA ozone standard, see my posting at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke/science_decider_in_chief.html
ReplyDeleteJohn Walke, that is an excellent article. Thanks for calling my attention to it.
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