Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 23, 1990 TAG: 9007230307
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A/6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And he won't eat his broccoli, either.
The president would like to get credit for bettering Ronald Reagan's environmental record. He could have improved on his predecessor, an enemy of environmentalism, by doing nothing.
The Bush record has some achievements, which is not the same as saying he's done enough. But he feels he's not getting adequate thanks. Environmentalists' advice, he says, is no longer welcome.
Isn't this a little peevish for a president of the United States?
It's not so much that George Bush campaigned on a promise to be the environmental president. He practically promised to be any kind of president that would win him votes.
The problem is that, in keeping with his campaign tactics, Bush is running a weathervane presidency. Aside from foreign affairs, which do not much excite the public, he does - or rather, talks about - things he thinks will be popular.
If President Bush does not hear enough applause, too often he backs off. If he hears boos, too often he has scuttled away, or gotten angry. On controversial matters, he has straddled, trying not to incite anyone.
On the environment, Bush has tacked to all points of the compass. He named William Reilly, esteemed by conservationists, to head the Environmental Protection Agency and proposed the job be elevated to Cabinet status. He named Manuel Lujan, no friend to environmental causes as a member of Congress, to head the Interior Department.
On the stump, he promised to fight the greenhouse effect; in the Oval Office, he has dragged his feet. And so on.
The White House would like environmentalists to think that their real adversary is Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu.
"Sununu has put out the word that environmentalists are dead in [Washington]," says Jay D. Hair, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "He's isolating President Bush from other world leaders on environmental issues."
But Bush can be isolated only if he accepts it. He did overrule his chief of staff on the issue of an international fund to help reduce pollution that's destroying the Earth's protective ozone layer. Sununu may take the flak. Bush remains the president.
There is nothing new in a politician's trying to be all things to all people. Carried too far, however, it raises doubts whether the politician has any principled beliefs at all.
Decisions on the environment - or, for that matter, on child care, taxes, the savings-and-loan mess or any other issue on the president's desk - ought to be made on their merits and on what is good for the country. They should not be decided on appearances' sake, in terms of how much the president will be thanked if he does right, or how much criticism he'll get for an unpopular move.
Bush may be unhappy with environmentalists' ingratitude. But satisfying environmentalists isn't the point. Protecting the environment is.
by CNB