Tactical foot-dragging by the Bush gang
Two stories from yesterday illustrate the Bush administration's use of foot-dragging as a tactical maneuver in their war against the proper role of government.
First, the EPA is refusing to comply in a timely manner with a Supreme Court decision from nearly a year ago which ordered the EPA to begin regulating greenhouse gases:
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson has shelved his agency's findings that greenhouse gases are a danger to the public, and on Thursday told Congress that he will initiate a lengthy public comment period about whether such emissions are a risk before responding to a U.S. Supreme Court order.
The move means there is virtually no chance the Bush administration will act to regulate greenhouse gases in response to the high court's decision in the time left in office.
The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency infuriated Democratic lawmakers, and attorneys who won the landmark case before the high court last spring.
"This is a transparent delaying tactic and a major reversal of EPA's position," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills). "The Bush administration is recklessly abandoning its responsibility to address the global warming crisis."
"It's outrageous," said Sierra Club attorney David Bookbinder, one of the lead attorneys on the case, who said he would ask the Supreme Court next week to order the EPA to act within 60 days.
Acting under the guiding hand of the Heritage Foundation and other organs of right-wing propaganda, Johnson is merely waiting out the clock on Bush's last days in office. If he can only stave off action on greenhouse gases until after January 2009, he will minimize the risk to his chances at landing a plum job in the private sector after his term at EPA comes to a close. The merits of the issue do not matter to him, just as they do not matter to any other appointee of this corrupt White House.
In a similar but even sleazier vein, the "trials" at Guantanamo are accused of being timed to correspond to the 2008 presidential election:
The Navy lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver argues in a Guantánamo military commissions motion that senior Pentagon officials are orchestrating war crimes prosecutions for the 2008 campaign.
[...]
The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President Bush's war court.
Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign.
"We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election," England is quoted as saying.
In this case, the foot-dragging isn't being carried out merely to foster one person's job prospects; it is one partisan's attempt at election tampering that is subverting the mechanisms of justice and derailing civil rights. Anyone who believes manipulations like this can't happen in ordinary civilian trials isn't paying attention. If prosecutors can do this in Guantanamo, they can do it in federal court in Knoxville. But none of that matters to people like England, who only seek partisan gain, whatever the societal cost.
The Bush gang has been on a crusade to pervert the role of government for seven long, dark winters now. Less than ten months to go ...