( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Barbara Boxer has moved to Rancho Mirage, replacing Mary Bono as the California desert’s star legislator. Someone seems a bit put out. No wonder, it will be much harder for Mary Bono to pose as an environmentalist in this desert now that a real one has come to town. Especially as Bono continues to serve as a loyal Bushie, even voting against HR 580 (US Attorney oversight) last night. That’s hardcore. But I digress.
Last week at the Gore hearings Mary Bono insinuated that Senator Boxer represents a threat to her district’s constituents. Boxer is using global warming as an excuse to play politics, says Mary. I dealt with the credibility of her witness and the extreme nature of her position on global warming here.
But Mary Bono’s scripted swipe at Barbara Boxer, on behalf of the nation’s poor, merits its own discussion. Here’s the video.
Before condemning Rep. Bono as an administration mouthpiece I talked to a staffer in Bono’s DC office. I asked, as a constituent familiar with Bono’s benign statements on the environment here at home, how skeptical Bono actually was about global warming. Did she really align herself with Bjork Lomborg, and btw, what she had done lately to alleviate energy costs for our district’s poor?
As we discussed it, I got the sense that Bono’s remarks embarrassed him, and he said he did not think that Bono was familiar with Dr. Lomborg’s work before that day. I suspect, as usual, Bono was given a text to deliver and hasn’t done any homework on Lomborg’s discredited theories. The only thing Bono’s done for energy costs is to support expanding LIHEAP, as far as I can tell. That was all Bono’s staffer could offer at the time. He was so attentive and pleasant I felt obliged to mention that I’m a Democrat, and not a supporter of Rep. Bono’s, however, her embrace of a discredited climate crisis naysayer was a surprise even to me. Again, he just remained pleasant and professional, but he didn’t really have anything to say about that. When we boot her out (please god) in 2008, perhaps he could stay on. It would help ease the transition for the Republican establishment here.
Bono poses as a moderate at home, and votes for the extreme right wing back in DC. And now she has the audacity to pose as a defender of the poor against Barbara Boxer, who apparently cares not if Palm Springs seniors wither in heat. It’s pure theatre of the absurd. The poor in this district know that Mary Bono can’t see them, and doesn’t want to hear from them. Maybe now that Barbara Boxer is here, their needs will get the attention they deserve. If we’d managed to elect David Roth, they’d be getting that attention right now.
Watch the video, then pop over to her home page for a dose of Mary Bono, Friend of Nature. Notice the green theme, and the beautiful mountain view featured top right. Looking at that, you’d never know her League of Conservation Voters score is 25%, up from 11% last year, nor that Bono is one of the most reliable corporate shills in Congress.
Transcribed (by me, not an official transcription) portion of the video:
Bono – There’s some thinking, ummm, Barbara Boxer is a constituent of mine, we share a region, she moved to my area, I love working with her on most issues but on this one I’m concerned.
Today I read in a local paper, RollCall, where she says:
“If the president chooses to veto a bill, that sets it up as a huge issue in the presidential election,” Boxer said. She goes on to say, “So we will do our best to get as many bills on his desk as we can to deal with green house gas reduction. I think it’s key that we do that because I want to set it up for the presidential campaign which is another one of my goals.”
So as a resident of Southern California when I see people die every year because they can’t afford their cooling costs, this sort of thinking scares me. And I appreciate you’re bringing some common sense- trying to slow the pendulum down from going the other way. [Looks at script] My question is simple, and perhaps I’m setting myself up for a loss, [still reading from script] but is it possible that we can enact and pass some of these policies and that will actually increase deaths in the immediate sense, that right away these cooling costs will get to be too high for my constituents and I’ll see more people die? It’s a very simple question, but I’m very afraid of that.
Lomborg – … bad political deals certainly possible. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything, but must weigh cost/benefit …
Bono – …. it was 103 degrees on Saturday, March 17th …..
The question that I have really – public policy in CA – they passed a very flawed bill that created the energy crisis that we lived through and we’re continuing to see the effects from, and so for me as a policymaker to be completely openminded and I appreciate your [Dr. Lomborg, the Skeptical Environmentalist] being here and again as my colleagues point out you’re not a traditional witness for us, but I appreciate that you brought to the dialogue a different point of view, and that is my concern this shouldn’t be set on election timetables it really ought to be set on public policy that really affects people’s lives.
Lomborg – Right, …can’t force the issue and cut emissions right now because people will fall apart. …..
Run, David, run!
Crossposted from DailyKos: http://www.dailykos….
