Bush Brags about His Policy on 'Clean' Coal

The fictions of George W. Bush continue. Bush is like a politician who's indignant when an opponent accuses him of wasting a hundred billion dollars: "Wrong!" gloats a politician like Bush, "I only wasted ninety-five billion and saved five billion to boot!" You can only shake your head. The only good news is that fewer and fewer Americans are buying Decider-in-Chief's nonsense.

Here's the latest from Think Progress on one of Bush's little fictions:

On Larry King Live last night, President Bush suggested that he has followed through on campaign promises to deal with greenhouse gases. He cited his administration’s investment in clean coal technologies:

"We have done a lot to deal with greenhouse gases by advancing new technologies. You know, I campaigned against Al Gore. I said we’re going to spend money for clean coal technologies, and we’re in the process of doing that."

Bush neglected to mention that in 2000 he campaigned on a pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as central compenent of his energy policy. On Sept. 29, 2000, while campaigning in Saginaw, MI, Bush said: “We will require all power plants to meet clean-air standards in order to reduce emissions of…carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time.”

Shortly after being elected, Bush announced he was backing off his campaign pledge due to pressure from the oil industry.... Vice President Cheney said of Bush’s campaign pledge, “It was a mistake because we aren’t in a position today to…cap emissions.”

Cheney, of course, invited the oil companies to Washington within weeks of taking office. The oil companies in recent years have donated far more money to Republicans than Democrats. On page xvii of Big Coal by Jeff Goodell, there's a graph that shows how much some companies are willing to donate to Republicans. The graph shows that General Motors, ExoonMobil, Pfizer, Altria (a tobacco company), Lockheed Martin, The Southern Company (coal), and Peabody Energy (coal) all donate far more money to Republicans than Democrats. In addition, the two coal companies mentioned donate a far higher percentage of their revenues than the other companies do to Republicans (according to the graph, Peabody Energy donated more than 5% of its total revenues to the GOP in recent elections) . I think we all get the picture.

Bush will say anything to improve his image. What we need is a president who will improve our nation.