corrente

Just a plea to New Yorkers to show the Republicans every hospitality, since anything else would look bad on TV... And to remember that the Republicans also poisoned you for political gain.

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This isn't the normal Bush approach to air pollution: it's far worse. Marc Kaufman of WaPo writes of how White House operatives suppressed the news that the air in Manhattan might be dangerous after the WTC towers fell:

In the report, the EPA inspector general said the agency was persuaded by the White House to omit cautionary language about the possible hazards from air pollutants such as asbestos, cadmium and lead after the World Trade Center towers fell. In addition, the report said the EPA omitted from early public statements guidance for the professional cleaning of indoor spaces, leading some people to return to their homes before they had been properly cleaned.

When the towers fell, their collapse created a large cloud of soot and debris that hung over Lower Manhattan for days. Emergency and construction workers spent weeks at the center of the destruction, and few wore respirators to protect themselves from the bad air.

Critics point to a statement by then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman on Sept. 18, 2001, that the air was safe for people to return to Lower Manhattan.

"For the EPA to have provided anything but their best professional advice . . . is inexcusable; for the White House to have edited out that advice -- including information regarding the heightened risks that the air pollution might pose for young children -- is nothing but malfeasance, " the Clinton-Lieberman letter said.

"Someone in the White House consciously told people it was safe to go back to their homes [in Lower Manhattan] when they knew they didn't have the information to support that conclusion," Nadler said. "That's a reckless disregard for human life, and it has to be addressed."

I like the wording "the agency was persuaded by the White House." What, Unka Karl threatened to leave a horse's head in Christie Whitman's bed? And a great SCLM-style headline, too: "Details on 9/11 Air Quality Questioned." Right.

YABL, YABL, YABL. Bush lies—children die. Standard operating procedure for the malAdministration.

[From the Bedrock Archive vault deep beneath The Mighty Corrente Building, 2003-08-26. And they think we don't keep track or remember...]