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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 12:00 AM

George W. Bush, environmentalist

In the final days of his presidency, Bush moves to protect a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean.

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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 07:22 AM

I doubt it's gonna get him into heaven

but, nice try...

It's easy for him to 'protect' a big block of ocean far from anything, with the only real objections coming from the plan's politically powerless opponents.

However, when it comes to something like preventing whales from being driven crazy and beaching themselves due to internal hemorrhaging caused by Navy sonar testing, well, he fought against preventing that.

If the Navy wanted to bomb somewhere within those 195,000 square miles of ocean, I'm sure he'd let them.

The ocean won't be much good if everything in it is dead

He didn't do much to protect drowning polar bears, either.

He's all for putting up 'homeland security' fences that block the migratory routes of endangered animals on the US-Mexican border. He's trying to take, by eminent domain, land from a nature preserve in order to accomplish this.

Between filling the EPA and Interior Department with political hacks and and industry insiders, and ignoring overwhelming evidence of environmental destruction from global warming, I'd say his efforts to 'save the oceans' don't amount to a bucket of squid spit...

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 07:28 AM

Thanks GWB

Your legacy is now a tiny bit less of a disgrace.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 07:29 AM

lol

Maybe he can set aside a couple of cubic parsecs of outer space while he's at it! The point is there was no commercial interest in the area he picked anyway, so it was easy. Plus, unless we do something about the CO2 problem, fish and coral will continue to die off anyway.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 07:51 AM

@cchristian

The point is there was no commercial interest in the area he picked anyway, so it was easy.

CC has exactly the right point in this, before everybody throws roses at Bush's feet, it's important to note that the only reason this happened was because of the above.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 07:53 AM

No teeth

And just who is going to monitor those millions of miles of oceans?

Locals? Plastics bags? Nobody...

All front. No teeth.

Anyone is free to do whatever they like out there.

Its a huge vast space. Impossible to police. Satellites can take pictures but that's about as far as it goes.

More meaningless ocean legislation.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 08:07 AM

damned if you do

I was just browsing the NRDC's assessment of Bush's environmental record. At one point, they manage to blame him for high levels of lead and arsenic stirred up by Gulf hurricanes.

Not sure if they're blaming him for permitting the hurricanes or allowing pollution for the past 200 years.

Anyone see similarities between this and Clinton preserving 84 MM acres off of Hawaii right before departing? What's with these guys and their egos?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 08:13 AM

QUICK! Someone alert Mike Gallagher!

You know who he is, right? He's one of those braying, right-wing radio nutjobs who just yesterday was predicting that NOBODY from the left would dare to mention this story. I would, but I don't care enough to look up his e-mail...

Thursday, January 8, 2009 09:27 AM

Alex, you're so deep...

Maybe you and Dubya oughta get on a rowboat and survey one of these sites. Pack a lunch. It may take awhile to get there.

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