councilor.org
| Source | Dave Anderson |
| Date | 00/12/15/12:21 |
| The Last Green Mile
www.nytimes.com December 8, 2000 FOREIGN AFFAIRS By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN With the odds increasing every day that George W. Bush will be declared the 43rd president, a couple of things are becoming clear: Bush voters are the likely winners. Gore voters are the likely losers. And all those people who voted for Ralph Nader and the Green Party are the likely really big losers. Why? Just do the math. Assuming a very narrow victory for Mr. Bush, and a 50-50 split in the U.S. Senate, it's highly doubtful that on the big policy issues tax cuts, Social Security, education, foreign policy a Bush administration will be able to do much more, or much less, than a Gore administration. Where Mr. Bush will have the biggest impact is not through the macro-politics, but through the micro-politics on all those issues that reside just below the radar, on all those issues where the hundreds of assistant secretaries, agency heads and department chiefs, whom the Bush team will appoint throughout the government, will have the discretion, guidance and desire to impose a conservative ethos. And what are those issues? Well, let's see things like how environmental regulations are interpreted, where oil wells can be dug in Alaska, what sorts of lands the Interior Department sets aside for conservation, how worker health and safety rules are enforced or expanded, how labor laws are interpreted, how gun control is dealt with, how aggressively fuel efficiency standards are pursued, how assiduously global population control programs are supported and to what extent the U.S. works to curb the "greenhouse" gases that are causing global warming. There is actually another name for all these environmental, social and labor issues: "The Nader Agenda." These are all the issues that Ralph Nader and his supporters professed to care most about. Well, guess what? All their issues are going to get the short end of the stick from a Bush-staffed bureaucracy, which will be heavily influenced by the oil and gas industry, the National Rifle Association and the anti-abortion lobby. Just think about one area global warming. Instead of having as president Al Gore, someone who would have made it a priority to rescue the failed Kyoto climate change treaty, we will probably have a president and vice president both of whom came from the energy business and don't even believe global warming is for real. Mr. Bush's chief of staff will be Andrew Card, who spent the last seven years as chief lobbyist for the auto industry, fighting tighter fuel economy, air pollution and global warming regulations. So Mr. Nader helped deliver a president from the oil industry, a vice president from the drilling industry and a chief of staff from the auto industry. Have a nice day. Indeed, when we wake up 20 years from now and find that the Atlantic Ocean is just outside Washington, D.C., because the polar icecaps are melting, we may look back at this pivotal election. We may wonder whether it wasn't the last moment when a U.S. policy to deal with global warming might have made a difference, and we may ask why the party most concerned about that, the Greens, helped to elect Mr. Bush by casting 97,000 Nader votes in Florida. Nader's voters forgot what Nader's Raiders always remembered: Government is not just about the big bills and legislation. It's also about lots of little things, decided by lots of little bureaucrats whom each party brings to Washington when it takes over. Throughout the campaign, the egomaniacal Mr. Nader who makes Ross Perot look selfless by comparison justified taking away votes from Mr. Gore by arguing that there really wasn't much difference between him and Mr. Bush. And, like a good Leninist, Mr. Nader also didn't seem to mind destroying the Democratic Party to save it. Well, maybe there didn't appear to be much difference between the two men but there was a huge difference between the hundreds of key people Al Gore and George Bush would appoint to staff their administrations. And those hundreds of people will make thousands of decisions that one day will add up to a very big difference. If you need any proof of that, look at Florida. Look at how many key decisions were taken by "little people" who resided below the radar screens local judges, senior state officials and local election supervisors. They are the gears of government, and in a Bush administration they are the ones who will be interpreting and regulating everything the Naderites care about. As I said, have a nice day. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho