Thursday, June 26, 2003

What To Do About Inconvenient Facts? Edit Them Out?

Molly Ivins' latest is Molly at her best.

She starts out with the administration's answer to the problem of global warming - "edit it out."

Think of the possibilities presented by this ingenious solution. Let's edit out AIDS and all problems with drugs both legal and illegal. We could get rid of Libya and Syria this way – take 'em off the maps. We can do away with unemployment, the uninsured, heart disease, obesity and the coming Social Security crunch. We could try editing out death and taxes, but I don't think we should overreach right away. Just start with something simple, like years of scientific research on global warming, and blue pencil that sucker out of existence. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

There's a reason why that last sentence is coming back in vogue. Denial has become a central principle of governance since Bush took office. It's almost another Bush Doctrine. And when we say governance, let us not forget that with this administration, the political is policy, policy is the political.

Inspiring as the remarkable Bush approach to resolving global warming is – the simplicity of it, the beauty of it, I cannot get over it – does it not suggest a certain cavalier je ne sais quoi about the future? What I mean is, is anybody there concerned about what happens to people?

Molly proceeds to discuss the API (American Petroleum Institute to you), AmeriCorps, and gutsy girl that she is, brings up that whole issue of the "L" word.