There, of course, is the criticism that the U.S. is being “stingy” in regard to the unfathomable disaster in south Asia. And the complaints that Bush shouldn’t be “on vacation,” because, of course, he takes whole days off from being POTUS, we all know. But this NYTimes letter might take the cake:
To the Editor:It’s easy for George W. Bush to express sorrow and to send condolences and even some aid for the Indian Ocean tsunami devastation, since he appears to bear no culpability, as he does in other situations in other parts of the world.
But the next time there is a severe offshore earthquake and resulting tsunami, the sea level will be just a little bit higher, and the water and destruction will go a bit further inland and kill even more people. And for that, he will bear some culpability for not even wanting to consider global warming, much less do anything about it as the leader of the country most responsible for man-made warming and ice-cap melting.
Pierre E. Biscaye
Palisades, N.Y., Dec. 27, 2004
The writer is a special research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
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