Let's assume for the sake of argument that Bush's foreign policy is keeping terrorists out of this country, that he has effectively secured our perimeters. Strange, isn't it, that he's setting fire to our living room?
I refer to his malicious trashing of the environment - our homeland - specifically through the Dept. of the Interior. The latest example of this is the recent rollback of grazing restrictions, the result of a rewrite - or "fixing" - of a grazing study which warned about unchecked cattle grazing on public lands (a story broken in the LA Times, available in their archive). Public lands in the West are already trashed by such grazing, as study after study, including the government's own, has shown.
Oddly, ranchers who supply the country with just 3% of our beef control federal grazing policy - a situation that, among other disasters, may lead to the complete extirpation of the federally protected wild horse under the Bush administration. These are the same people who went bonkers when Oprah bashed burgers. When asked about the recent grazing rollbacks, BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said that "grazing is a proud Western heritage."
Senators Reid and Lautenberg have it right in seeking to have the GAO investigate the Bush administration for its rewriting of global warming stats. I suggest similar redress of the grazing lies (which will have to come from Senators and reps in states that are Big Beef-free), through the Department of the Interior's own published scientific code of conduct, which it instituted two years ago to keep environmentalists in check, after pro-enviro scientists allegedly submitted false information about the federally protected lynx. Under the new code, employees are required to report their activities "honestly, thoroughly and without conflict of interest." And, they must "place quality and objectivity of scientific activities and information ahead of personal gain or allegiance to individuals or organizations."
Additionally, employee misconduct is defined as "fabricating, falsifying or plagiarizing research."
In permitting - and encouraging - the fixing of the grazing data, Bush continues his policy of laying waste to our interior, torching our lands and turning our purple mountains majesty into a scourge, while wrapping himself in the flag. Why do we need the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security? In a few more years, the wide open space which our ancestors bled for will be one big feedlot filled with mad cows.