A couple of big papers weigh in on Bush admin. environmental malfeasance. First, the Washington Post calls the zombie-esque, won’t-stay-dead “Clear [cough] Skies” bill, in gentle editorialese, “flawed.” They point out that a compromise bill would be easy to hash out, and they blame both parties equally for not doing so. This is fashionable in Beltway media parlance, this “pox on both their houses” high-mindedness, though it makes one wonder if D.C. scribblers have been paying attention for the last four years.
The L.A. Times bashes the Bushies for ignoring the mercury problem. They are, as is their wont, less circumspect than the Post. Discussing an upcoming U.N. meeting on mercury, they drop this juicy ‘graph:
Documents submitted by the U.S. government, meanwhile, present no specific goals or steps, reject the idea of a treaty, call vaguely for voluntary partnerships, and offer to teach others about “best practices.” That’s a curious phrase coming from the nation just criticized by its own Environmental Protection Agency inspector general for violating scientific procedures in order to come up with an industry-friendly regulation of coal plants, probably the biggest source of mercury emissions in this country.
Indeed.
Of course, we all know that because these papers oppose administration policies, they are liberal, and because they are liberal they are biased, and because they are biased there’s no need to listen to what they say about administration policies. Handy!
