Too little, too late

Maggie says:
Today's news tells us that Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and most recently Bush's first head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is coming out with a tell-all book that criticizes Bush leadership on environmental issues and its negative influence on the EPA's ability to be effective.

So this is great, right? Wrong.

The fact that Whitman is choosing to publish her book now, months after the election, is as good a sign as any that she is utterly weak and without conviction. Worse, she wants to make profits from a tell-all book, but doesn't want it to really create any change.

I have particular anger at Whitman over this issue. She went into the EPA as a very popular public figure, respected by both parties and considered a rising star in politics (for those who view moderate Republicans as rising stars, that is). And when she left the EPA, it was widely understood that she resigned because her views (actual respect for the environment) were incompatible with the Bush view of corporate control. So at that time, her brief Bush administration tenure had all the makings of a great story. Certainly, she had the star power to speak up then and be heard. But she didn't.

For years after she left (including during the election), Whitman was a frequent guest on the talk show circuit, always spouting nothing but praise for Bush and his policies. I saw her once on the Jon Stewart show going on and on about how Bush's hands-off approach would inspire corporations to innovate and become less polluting on their own, without the resentment that would be caused by regulations.

This book of hers is a nail in her coffin, in my view. In every instance, she has chosen the weakest path, the one without consequence, and also the one without impact. If Christine Todd Whitman really does believe in environmental protection and really was outraged at how she was manipulated by Bush&Co, we should've heard about it while the country was reconsidering his place as president.

Hearing this now, when all is said and done, amounts to little more than pointless gossip. And she amounts to little more than a political has-been who was too weak to make a difference when it counted.