In catching up with some old reading material, the May 24th The New Republic chastised the NY Times about "exaggerating Bush's bad environmental policies while downplaying the good."

Oh, give me a break. I'm a long-time reader of TNR and I've come to realize that they like to every now and again take a whack at the more liberal establishment to help build "cred," or to help substantiate that they don't blindly align with the left. I get their intention (though I don't completely agree with it; anyone who reads the publication knows that they're one of the most intellectually honest publications out there and they should not have to take deliberate actions to point it out), yet I think the ire directed at the Times is just laughable.

OK, so here we have a president which by all accounts has been THE worst (#1) environmental president in U.S. history, bar none, and yet when he apparently does something pro-environment, he is to be applauded and cheered. Sorry, no. To begin to erase such a horrible record will require many more such mandates. Many.

(And I was surprised to see that the normally-shrewd TNR didn't even at least allude to the fact that perhaps Bush has become recently pro-environmental due to the impending election. To a point, judging a president on election-year legislation is ludicrous).

P.S. case and point: today's NY Times story.