ustxtxb_obs_2002_04_12_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

FEATURE Democrats, the Other White Men Michael Moore’s New Book Takes on More Than Just W From STUPID WHITE MEN by Michael Moore. Copyright 2001 by Michael Moore. Published by arrangement with ReganBooks, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Listen, before any of you good Democrats start considering at what temperature books burn, let me get this out of the way: George W. Bush is worse than Al Gore or Bill Clinton. No question about it. But what exactly does that mean? If you put any two humans side by side and force someone to choose which one is “worse,” they’ll usually choose the one who’s the bigger jerk. Hitler was “worse” than Mussolini, a Chevy is “worse” than a Ford, I am definitely “worse” than my wife. So what? This is a child’s game. The truth is, the choice between Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” and Clintonism is no more meaningful than the choice between castor oil and cherry-flavored Robitussin. The Bush II administration began with Junior overturning a number of executive orders issued by President Clinton. Immediately he was made out to be some sort of monster. This was an important momentsymbolicallyfor the What’s never mentioned is that Clinton spent eight years doing little or nothing with any of these problems, and then, with hours left in the administration, decided to try to leave office looking good. Democrats. They needed the public to believe that Bush was putting arsenic into the water and trying to poison us all. They wanted the people ofAmerica to think Bush was going to tear up the national forests, cut off abortion funding, and rape Alaska because he was only concerned with undoing all the good that President Clinton had done. What’s never mentioned is that Clinton spent eight years doing little or nothing with any of these problems, and then, with hours left in the administration, decided to try to leave office looking good \(he was always set up Bush to look like the heavy. Either way, it worked. Because the truth is, George W Bush did little more than CONTINUE the policies of the last eight ‘years of the Clinton/Gore administration. For eight long years, Clinton/ Gore resisted all efforts and recommendations to reduce carbon dioxide in our air and arsenic in our water. Just one month before the 2000 election, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and sixteen other Democrats successfully led the way to STOP any reduction of arsenic in the water. Why? Because Clinton and the Democrats were beholden to the rich bastards who had financed their campaignsand who didn’t want the levels of arsenic in the water changed. Take the fact that Clinton/Gore was the first administration in twenty-five years NOT to demand higher, fuel efficiency standards from Detroit. Under their watch, in other words, millions of barrels of oil were unnecessarily refined and spewed out into our air. Ronald Reagan, that icon of conservatism, had a better environmental record on’ , this front: His administration ordered that cars get more. miles per gallon. Under his successor, Bush I, the standards were made even stricter. But under Clinton? Nothing. How many.more people will die from cancer, how much faster will global warming proceed,, thanks to .Bill and Al’s camaraderie with one of their chief patrons, the top lobbyist for the .Big Three auto companiesnone other than. Andrew Cardovho; not surprisingly, is currently chief of staff for Clinton’s logical extension, George W. Bush. , So is there a difference between Democrats and .Republicans? .Sure. The Democrats say one thing \(“Save the 4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 4112102