|
Christie Whitman is back in the
news, appearing in the PBS Frontline documentary “Hot Politics” on how the Bush
administration stonewalled on climate change and now campaigning for nuclear
energy as the safe, efficient technology to curb global warming emissions (see
her interview with United Press International). But there’s something about the
former Bush Environmental Protection Administrator that the feckless media has
never been able to pin down. Is she that rare thing in contemporary American
politics, a Platonic philosopher queen, suckled in the bosom of an aristocratic
Republican family and raised with the proper noblesse oblige to become a
thoughtful moderate? Or is she merely a high-priced escort for powerful corporate
interests? Is that Grenada
we see—or only Asbury Park?
I’ve been watching Christie
Whitman’s moves for years, because she was the two-term governor of my home
state, New Jersey,
before George W. Bush brought her up to the Show, only to screw her when she
went public with the need for mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.
She always looks great, speaks well, always had the best handlers, who
brilliantly positioned her as the Green Republican. She was the first New Jersey governor of
either party to criticize the state’s awful suburban sprawl with the memorable
line, “We can’t build our way out of sprawl.”
She championed preservation of green space, and launched an important
lawsuit against the coal-fired Midwest power plants which dumped their air
pollution on New Jersey
for decades.
But Whitman also decimated the
state’s Department of Environmental Protection, eviscerating its enforcement
capacity, from which it has never recovered. When it came to doing something
about sprawl, traffic congestion and urban revival, Whitman refused to confront
the developers in any way other than bureaucratic hocus pocus. As a result, the
Jersey Shore was completely overdeveloped and
the state’s terrific redevelopment plan was shelved. She got a big bounce to
the national stage, but her environmental legacy in New Jersey? Like she never existed.
When Whitman left Washington, with her foxy tail between her
gams, she became a consultant, and now heads the Clean and Safe Energy
Coalition, a PR operation entirely financed by the Nuclear Institute. Now she’s
touring the nation promoting an industry that has never been able to stand on
its own without perverse subsidies, much less to resolve its radioactive waste
storage or security problems.
We won’t hear that from Christie
Whitman. She’ll position herself on the side of the angels as the martyr under
Bush-Cheney for mandatory controls on global warming pollution. But will she
campaign for mandatory controls? Nah. She’s got a new Daddy now.
Trackback(0)
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
