Scouring the Shire

WASHINGTON - Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, U.S. Interior Department officials are trying to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986.
. . .
Environmentalists said the move was the latest attempt by the Bush administration to overrule Congress, which for years has resisted efforts by conservative Republicans to make similar changes by amending the law.

"Somebody has lit a fire under these guys to get this done in due haste," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive director of Defenders of Wildlife and the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service under former President Clinton.

Well, isn't that sweet! One last chance for George W to gut our environmental protection laws before that damn bunch of tree-huggers takes office! More goodies for his corporate base. "Après moi, le déluge", says our very own Texas version of Louis XV.

Kind of reminds me of "The Scouring of the Shire," that second to the last chapter of The Return of the King, a chapter that the movie omitted. All about Saruman's final revenge against the detested hobbits after they defeated his lord, Sauron of Mordor. He and his henchmen appropriated for themselves everything of value in the Shire. And wantonly ruined whatever they didn't want.

So I guess that will be Bush's final legacy. Like Saruman's revenge for his own loss:

I have already done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives. And it will be pleasant to think of that and set it against my injuries.

But, like hobbits, we are resilient, and we will eventually recover from this nightmarish eight years. And, of course, Bush has never had either the intelligence or the malice of Saruman the Wise. He is just a weak, little man who continues to be manipulated by persons and powers stronger than himself. Oliver Stone probably portrayed the whole sorry picture pretty acurately in his current movie.

But it's almost over.