Christine Todd Whitman has always interested me. She was, at one time, the darling of the Republican party. When she was young, beautiful, and blond she became the Governor of New Jersey. She seemed to be the perfect package: Looks and brains. She engendered a lot of attention and many people were hopeful that she might be the one female to break the barrier and become the next President.
However, Christine increasingly began to show herself to be a neocon: A person as unrelated to the Reagan Revolution as Ted Kennedy is. While in office she attempted to keep partial birth abortions legal and went on a lark with a police officer to get her photograph in the paper (frisking a 16 year old black man who wasn't even arrested). This caused a firestorm of controversy and her successes in the environmental arena paled in comparison to these faux pas, in my opinion.
After serving as Governor, Whitman (who is distantly related to the Bush family by marriage) was appointed as the head of the EPA to serve under the Bush administration.
In early 2005, Whitman came out with a book titled "It's My Party, Too", in which she alleged that the Christian Fundamentalists were attempting to hijack the Republican Party (I agreed with her at the time). This book caused a firestorm and angered many fellow Republicans. Since then, I've come to believe that the only people that have hijacked the Republican party are the neocons who are the puppets of Big Business.
Now it has come out that Whitman made some very mistaken statements to the people as the head of the EPA during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In an attempt to manage the public terror afterwards, she lied in published statements, attesting that the air and water were safe (when there was no proof whatsoever). This was not solely Whitman's call: These statements were made under the direction of the Bush administration. She had also collaborated with "James L. Connaughton, a former lobbyist for the asbestos and electric power industries, to soften EPA statements about air and water quality, the EPA inspector general found."*
All I can think about is someone who is very close to me who almost went to "Ground Zero" to help out the search crews. Last minute he decided it wasn't feasible to go. However, the only reason he didn't go was the amount of travel time from Florida to New York City. After all, we had all been assured that the air and water were fine. I wonder, what if he had gone on misinformation contrived by the neocons? And legally: How responsible are they for the health problems that were gained because of needless exposure that was due to their lies? If not legally, they are certainly ethically responsible.
Christine Todd Whitman: How far you've fallen.
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5 comments:
Republicans have always hated the EPA. All them no good science type people trying to tell us we can not just dump dioxins into lakes and rivers! Don't they know that is the cheapest way to get rid of that stuff?
And are you really shocked that Bush would appoint a crony with no qualifications but who would do whatever he OR President Cheney told them to do? Really, this is not very shocking.
The evangelicals have hijacked the party. AND the big mega churches ARE big business! Think of all the loot they rake in. Lets see here, 15,000 member church, everyone gives $10 a week, and it is all tax free! Nice. How do I start one of these churches? I would only skim 10% off the top. I could live very well on $15,000 a week! But I could live even better skimming 25% off the top! And like a king if I skim 50% off the top!!!
There has not been a fight over the power because big business would rather the evangelicals be out there shilling for the party. There are more people who associate themselves with a religion than there are white pasty old farts with millions of dollars. So the evangelicals get to get all hysterical about fags and who marries who, while the business end gets to slip in tax cuts for them, and whatever else they want. Keep the non issues alive so that the masses still have a "reason" to vote Republican and you keep your majority!
Lazy, you've got good points, indeed. BUT, aren't such big churches REALLY business? After all, they're significantly different than BIBLICAL churches (by far). But... you are correct - there are still many businesses masquerading as churches that use religion as a way to manipulate. And, as Karl Marx once said (one of the only things he ever got right, IMHO)... "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Actually Marx got a few things right. The only thing people read is his manifesto, which was written to be a short flier handout thing to workers.
If you read some of Marx's other longer works, it becomes clear he was just an economist.
And he was right. The capitalism that was around when he was alive is dead. It collapsed, just like he predicted.
I would like to think that the GOP is divided into Republicans, Christian Republicans, and Business Republicans. Some hurt the party more than others.
UWL, excellent thought: Really, I guess the Dems could be similarly divided, though they're more fractured in some ways.
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