It seems the world will be swinging around today to smooch Duhbya’s suddenly eco-friendly left buttcheek in the wake of his watching a Cousteau film and then turning a whole buncha water into a protected national monument… and even in my abject distaste for the preznit I gotta admit when I read about the act this morning it initially plucked my heartstrings almost as proud as the remarkable speech he read before Congress after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Keyword: initially.
But my distaste and distrust for the dude eventually rushes back in to fill the void and I’m left doubting his motives. Not that it wasn’t a respectable thing he did saving a whole lotta fishes and birds and coral (nevermind that they weren’t under all that much of a threat to begin with), but let’s face it a 1,200-mile by 100-mile strip of water out in the middle of the Pacific is a long way away and it way ain’t no arctic refuge. This new safety zone may be an area bigger than all other national parks combined, but the amount of foot traffic the place will see is pretty much limited to water walkers like say… oh: Jesus?
Is it my bad that I sense this earth-first about-face as a mollifying tactic to manuever approval ratings upward? Maybe, but hey I’m just a product of the environment of doubt that Duhbya’s cultivated — which means that I can’t help but think he and his peeps didn’t first extensively vet things through to make doubly sure there weren’t any resources undah dah watah there that might someday be potentially worth exploiting.
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