Confuse, Deny, Duck

A sampler of headlines from around the nation last week:

Clinton Road Ban in Forests Survives

Bush to Ease Forest Road Ban

Administration Pursues Delicate Compromise

White House Reignites Battle on Forest Roads

Well, mission accomplished. After a pugnacious start, President Bush has found a more compassionate way to go about undoing protections on public lands: Confuse matters and then get on with it.

Obfuscation is nothing new in politics.

But for those optimists who thought this administration might be better than the last one in leveling with America, the recent double-talk on public forest lands, national monuments and parks shows otherwise.

George W. Bush has decided to dissemble just the way Bill Clinton did: When the going gets tough, tell people what they want to hear even if it's not quite the truth.

At stake are large tracts of the West, those parts we share. Our public lands.

Late in his term, Clinton took sides in the tiresome dispute over management of these lands.

He imposed conservation regulations on forests, parks and monuments that favored the sensibilities of urban and preservationist voters--those who feel that the United States is growing squeezed, those who are rattled by the constant roar of machines.

Clinton's decisions infuriated timber interests, energy developers and those who enjoy motorized recreation, along with Western politicians. But they haven't suffered long.

Let's connect the dots: The polls show Bush is out of step with the nation on the environment.

His earlier repeal of Clinton directives went down badly. But Bush still believes that he is right and conservationists are wrong.

What to do? Make way for development without exactly saying so.

Confuse things. Don't bother repealing protections, undermine them. Make your opponents call you a liar. Deny it.

That's what occurred with three recent announcements. The Bush administration indicated that, after study, it would uphold Clinton protective regulations on public lands. "Uphold" is a strong word. But it didn't really apply.

Just beneath the surface of these announcements were enough buts, howevers and on-the-other-hands to incrementally gut Clinton's public lands protections.

Are we dwelling on the obvious here? Maybe. But as the confusion of recent news headlines suggests, it's difficult to summarize the actions of a president who claims to be doing one thing while intending to do another.