Flat Wrong

I say, Bully for Bill, Bush! Bully for Bill Clinton who had the conviction and the heart to go up there to the UN conference on global climate change in Montreal yesterday and tell the world what the vast majority of us Americans believe: that you're flat wrong. In your obsession with the need to protect American business, you're not doing them a favor, Bush, and you're further negating our responsibility for leadership in the world. As Clinton pointed out, your overprotection ofr American business is a wrong-headed approach, which serves only to stand in the way of the imaginative entrepreneurship that has served our country well for over a hundred years. You're castrating business interests and disempowering them under the pretense of keeping them strong. And in the meantime, thanks to our failure of leadership, the planet continues to suffer from a surfeit of the poisons we produce.

So what's so special about us that we can't even agree to negotiate with the other nations of the world? What is it that dictates that arrogant refusal to get down and talk to those we share the planet with? Your representatives at the conference--our representatives, I'm ashamed to say--rejected every proposal toward progress that was put forward on the table. I know, I know, Bush: other nations have been equally protective, equally short-sighted, equally blinded by what they perceive to be their national interests. But we're the richest, the most powerful nation in the world. Aren't we supposed to lead the way, not coddle ourselves and our superrich corporations? Can't we trust our magnificent business ingenuity to find solutions--profitable solutions--to these problems? Do we have to be the leading desecrator of our planet, not its leading friend and advocate?

So, yes, I say again, Bully for Bill, Bush. And bully for Jimmy Carter, while we're at it, who has had the guts to speak out against our arrogant attitude toward the rest of the world. I know it's not the custom for American ex-presidents to come out and criticize their successors. But you, Bush, are leading us so badly in the wrong direction that they cannot and should not remain silent. Clinton's right: you're flat wrong in your climate change policy, just as you were flat wrong in your precipitous decision to lead us into war before every other option was explored; just as you're flat wrong in your absurd addiction to tax cuts for the wealthy while the poor of this nation--not to mention the rest of the world--go ill-fed, without access to proper medical care and now, in the wake of natural disasters everywhere, often without shelter.

Flat wrong, for too many of the people of this world, means dead wrong, Bush. And if your policies pesist, it will mean dead wrong for many, many more.