Dick Says Drink Up!
Today's installment in thePost's"Everything You Knew About Dick Cheney (But Would Be Disappeared For Investigating)" series is all about, well, Christine Todd Whitman. It's remarkable that a former Republican governor ofNew Jersey-- we're talking about Christine "Breathe Deep at Ground Zero, Kids, Good Ol' American Know-How Will Clean the Asbestos Off Your Lungs" Whitman here -- comes off looking like a model steward of the environment, but we're comparing her to Dick Cheney, a man who tries to interpret the Clean Air Act as a call for the government to destroy the moon.
Whitman said she plunked down two sets of folders filled with news clips. This one, she said, pointing to a stack about 2-1/2 inches thick, contained articles, mostly negative, about the administration's controversial proposal to suspend tough new standards governing arsenic in drinking water. And this one, she said as she pointed to a pile four or five times as thick, are the articles about the rules on aging power plants and refineries -- and the administration hadn't even done anything yet.
"If you think arsenic was bad," she recalled telling Bush, "look at what has already been written about this."
How nice of thePostto remind us of the administration's principled pro-arsenic-in-drinking-water stance the day after we all got our water quality reports from the DC Water and Sewer Authority! Don't worry, everyone, the water is fine -- the acceptable level of arsenic was chosen by Dick himself, and the radiation from pollutants in the Potomac is canceled out by the lead from the pipes!
Leaving No Tracks [WP]