The New York Times editorial page thinks Ken Salazar is too nice to head the Department of Interior:
The word on Ken Salazar ... is that he is friendly, approachable, a good listener, a genial compromiser and a skillful broker of deals. That is also the rap on Ken Salazar.
What the Interior Department needs right now is someone willing to bust heads when necessary and draw the line against the powerful commercial groups—developers, ranchers, oil and gas companies, the off-road vehicle industry—that have long treated the department as a public extension of their private interests.
Conservationists and pretty much everyone else exhausted by the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity and deference to commercial interests have welcomed Mr. Salazar’s appointment. The Colorado Democrat has a solid voting record on issues involving wilderness and wildlife protection and can be expected to bring a strong conservation ethic to the top of the department.
Yet that will not be nearly enough to reform and reinvigorate the department. The Interior Department is an unusually balkanized agency, with eight separate divisions charged with managing 500 million acres of public land in a way that balances private and public claims. It is essential that Mr. Salazar find the right people to run each of these fiefs, and find ways to make them work intelligently and harmoniously in the nation’s interest.
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ce1907 Posted 12:06 pm
02 Jan 2009
claptrap
who dreams this stuff up?
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amazingdrx Posted 4:47 pm
02 Jan 2009
Bison, prairie chickens, and cone flowers, over a rampant field of 350 foot diameter wind machines.
And maybe 3000 species of birds and who knows how many insects. Count 'em, line 'em up. Makes a damn fine park sticker.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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archigeek Posted 2:12 am
03 Jan 2009
The mellotron is your friend.
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GonzoDon Posted 3:10 am
03 Jan 2009
Other than that, though, I guess she was OK.
Her punishment for wrecking so much havoc on an entire agency and it's mission? Nothing, as far as I can tell.
She conveniently resigned from DOI the day after the Inspector General's damning report came out on her. I'm sure all her real estate & oil & gas cronies in California have been taking good care of her since.
It's such an outrage that people like her skate off scott-free after hammering the public agencies she was supposed to champion as if they were her personal pinatas.
Julie MacDonald should be dragged into court and asked to 'splain herself -- assuming Georgie Boy doesn't pardon her in the meantime.
Of course it will never happen. If there's one certain thing about the criminals, incompetents, and miscreants of the Bush Administration, it is that they will never be held accountable for any of their crimes.
I wish the Dems had more spine.
As for Julie, I hope she has a crappy year.
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