OnBackground

An online journal of politics, policy, and society with a special focus on Maryland -- Contact: on_background at yahoo.com.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Environmental Hypocrisy

Remember how we talked before about how sneaky politicos are when they learn from people like political consultant Frank Luntz to talk like they care about people, the environment, etc. while doing things they hurt them? I know that sounds a bit like old fashioned hypocrisy, but it has been taken to new lows through legislation like Clean Skies, Healthy Forests, and welfare reform (and yes, I know which president signed the last one into law) that hurt us and our world while pretending otherwise.

Today Marylander's got a taste of that when the Secretary of the Department of the Environment told activists at the Maryland Legislative Environmental Summit in Annapolis that the Ehrlich/Steele administration care about the environment and have been working to protect it. I could hardly contain myself. I think that I like the old kind of conservative, the Jesse Helms and James Watt kind better. They may destroy the earth, ignore poverty and hunger, and discriminate against anyone different than they, but at least they admit what they are and what they do.