http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/4600409.htm

`THEY hate us.'' A friend called to rant about the Bush administration. ``I mean it,'' he said, sounding a tone of someone who means it. ``They hate us. Not just our ideas. But us.''

His subject was the nation's environmentalists. And I'm afraid he's right.

Anti-conservation has become a gangland vendetta by George W. Bush and those he entrusts to govern. I cannot see another way to explain the endless string of one-sided decisions and the dripping condescension with which they are delivered. Not much of anything -- not reason, not science, not public opinion, not the future, not process and certainly not fellowship -- stands in the way.

I will concede that environmentalists have done plenty to bring on their woes.

Yet that's no excuse for this. Not for the inflammatory, rub-their-noses-in-it statement offered recently in a court case brought by the Center for Biological Diversity. In a feather-brained brief, the administration argued that conservationists should consider the upside of bird deaths at a remote Navy live-fire range. ``Bird-watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one.'' Besides, the government added, Navy bombardment keeps away people who might otherwise disturb the birds."

How obnoxious.

Doug



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