Iraq Won't Be Remembered As Bush's Low Point - (Climate Will) - Miami Herald

[hatrack]

The debacle in Iraq has become such a dominant feature of the daily news that it's pretty much assumed that George Bush's legacy will be all about the war. It seems certain that he'll be remembered, mostly, for soldiers killed, billions wasted, terrorism spawned and worse decisions on top of bad ones.

His weekly poll numbers, thanks to the escalating horrors in Iraq, are as dismal as any president's in history. But history may shrug off Iraq as a failure of middling consequence. Ask our kids 30 or 40 or 50 years from now. They'll remember George Bush in near apocalyptic terms. He'll be the denier-in-chief who failed to acknowledge, much less confront, the coming ecological catastrophe. Unhappily, our kids will think of their parents as the selfish lot happy to go along with Bush rather than make the sacrifices needed to fix the mess.

EDIT

An early indication of Bush's historical legacy came in a Union of Concerned Scientists report released three days before the Climate Change panel report. Some 120 government scientists from seven federal agencies said they had been pressured to remove references to ''climate change'' or ''global warming'' from government reports and press releases. More than 100 scientists said political appointees in those agencies had altered scientific findings to downplay the seriousness of climate change.

POLICY VACUUM

The administration -- up against 2,500 scientists -- acknowledged the overwhelming evidence cited by the climate change panel last week. But there was no indication that Bush would make any major policy changes to stanch greenhouse gases. Hugh Willoughby, senior scientist at the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University, a one-time global warming skeptic himself (15 years ago, before the data became overwhelming), said Monday that what worries him, more than the known problems cited by the panel, are what he calls ''the unknown unknowns,'' the unanticipated climate changes.

EDIT

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16630798.htm

[phantom power]

1. Let's not sell Ira{q,n} short. BushCo still has 22 months to escalate into WWIII.

[Poiuyt]

2. So many low points, so little time

[kestrel91316]

3. He's too busy trying to start a nuclear WWIII to bother his

beautiful mind with trivia like, uh, the survival of life on earth.

The guy has been promised his place in Heaven(TM) and BY GOD he's gonna earn it!!!!!!!!