[greenyes] Whitman on Bush

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

January 4, 2005 |
Ex-EPA Head Whitman Recounts Frustrations with Right Wing Ideologues
Christine Todd Whitman, who served as President Bush's administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency until she resigned under strained 
circumstances in June, 2003, has written a memoir that looks unkindly at the 
enormous influence of far-right advocates in the Administration.


To be published by Penguin Books at the end of this month, "It's My Party 
Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America," asserts 
that in revving up his base for the November election, Mr. Bush "missed an 
opportunity to significantly broaden his support in the most populous areas 
of the country," i.e. the blue states. [1]


"The Karl Rove strategy to focus so rigorously on the narrow conservative 
base won the day," Whitman writes, "but we must ask at what price to 
governing and at what risk to the future of the party."


When president-elect Bush offered her the job as head of the EPA, says 
Whitman, she felt certain that he wanted her to build a strong environmental 
legacy. This was reinforced after a meeting with Karl Rove, Bush's master 
strategist. "I took Rove to mean that the work I would do in building a 
strong record on the environment would help the president to build on his 
base by attracting moderate swing voters." [2]


But "As it turned out," she continues, "I don't seem to have understood Karl 
correctly," as she goes on to describe the countless frustrations in dealing 
with what she calls the "anti-regulatory lobbyists and extreme 
anti-government ideologues" that she indicates hold too much influence in 
the party.


"A clear and present danger Republicans face today is that the party will 
now move so far to the right that it ends up alienating centrist voters and 
marginalizing itself," she writes. [3]

"..."

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