Editorials/The Bush Resolve/Nature Fakers
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS THE BUSH RESOLVE George Bush has just completed an V act of presidential leadership surpassing any similar effort by an American President in recent times—though only with modern...
...In the 1980s they tripled their nuclear energy capacity while cutting pollutants from their electric power system by approximately 90 by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...During that period Americans have allowed their nuclear power industry to stagnate...
...Had we, over the past dozen years, ignored the anti-nuclear hysterics and built more nuclear power plants we could laugh off the gruesome quarrels of irritable Middle Eastern potentates...
...Six months ago all this would have been unthinkable...
...NATURE FAKERS W hat exquisite timing...
...Imagine Syrian forces sharing our goals and maneuvering on the Iraqi border...
...Nuclear energy has obviously reduced our dependence on foreign oil...
...For some reason he inspires even more stupidity than Ronald Reagan...
...That is what Churchill would call "action this day...
...Ronald Reagan has been repeatedly presented as a blunderer, albeit the luckiest blunderer since Grover Cleveland...
...He did it without indulging in vainglorious boasts or blood-chilling roars...
...Now we are hearing a gratuitous undercurrent of foreboding from the pundits: "Oh, it's not going to be easy...
...Ron Sher, speaking for the Seabrook nuclear power plant, announces that his heretofore controversial facility has just completed its reactor tests and begun to supply electricity to New England...
...Had this model tyrant not been oblivious to the changed circumstances of the present he would not have acted in accordance with the ruthless customs of the past...
...These Weisenheimers are playing on the weird pessimism that has afflicted our fellow Americans through what have obviously been some of the most benign years of American history...
...He immediately saw that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait menaced our vital interests, and he took decisive action...
...At any rate, without warning and just as Washington was taking its summer siesta, the President was presented with a provocation 6,000 miles away that many American politicians would have sent to the United Nations for extended negotiation...
...One hundred reactor orders have been canceled...
...Thus, as our brave soldiers face Generalissimo Hussein, let us congratulate the brave souls at Seabrook who faced the Nature Fakers and won...
...vast military moves worldwide, addressed the concerns of different Arab leaders, and paid his respects to the conventions and interests of the members of the United Nations...
...Imagine the United States and the Soviet Union being inaccord over the fate of Saddam Hussein, who until just the other day was a Soviet client...
...The moralistic dithering of the Carter Administration would only have ended when Iraq had rolled over Saudi Arabia, and there are plenty of Machiavels in Congress today who would act no more decisively were they in the Oval Office...
...A mere eight pounds of uranium generates energy equal to 6,000 tons of messy oil...
...He briefed allies, often personally...
...He has marshaled practically the entire world against an Arab Mussolini, and he did it in a matter of days...
...Between the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and 1989 our economy grew by about 50 percent...
...Approximately 25 percent of this oil came from the shaky nations of the Persian Gulf...
...dependent as never before on foreign oil...
...Coal and oil kill and maim people every year, but the anti-nuke crowd has never tried to kill off these industries...
...Obviously, our pols had best do all they can to increase the production of safe, homegrown energy...
...Yet the pols have let anti-nuke protestors kill off the nuclear industry and our reliance on foreign oil now grows...
...five percent was supplied by nuclear energy...
...Fully 50 percent of our oil came from inbound tankersin the first three months of 1990...
...When the Soviets were aiding and encouraging terror and aggression, overthrowing the legitimate government of Kuwait could have been accomplished at much less risk...
...and back in sleepy Seabrook, New Hampshire, a Mr...
...The French have recognized the prudence of going nuclear, and they now derive 75 percent of their electricity from nuclear reactors...
...Of course, President Bush's stupendous achievement would not have been possible without the assistance of Sad-dam Hussein...
...though nuclear energy is not responsible for oil spills, the greenhouse effect, or the air pollution that comes with the burning of fossil fuels...
...The environmentalists who frighten theminto regulating the life out of nuclear energy are the kind of frauds Teddy Roosevelt had in mind when he spoke of "Nature Fakers...
...percent...
...Our recent economic revival would have been impossible without abundant electrical power...
...Oh, how we botched things with Saddam Hussein six months ago...
...It seeps from the ski slopes in Aspen, Colorado, and from sidewalks in downtown America...
...The alarms against nuclear energy are for the most part unfounded...
...Almost overnight a huge expeditionary force composed of perhaps half a dozen nationalities was headed to the scene of aggression...
...Saddam Hussein sends 170,000 soldiers to commandeer 9.44 percent of the world's oil resources (Kuwait) and has designs on another 25.46 percent (Saudi Arabia...
...Our consumption of foreign oil for all purposes is now at record levels...
...He is using the great naval power that the Reagan Administration built up during the 1980s despite withering criticism...
...Each month the plant will produce sufficient electricity for one million homes, eliminating the monthly consumption of 1.5 million barrels of oil...
...The use of electricity has grown by 54 percent...
...He has chosen the present to act like a thug from the past...
...Perhaps it is time for the commentators to analyze the origin and nature of this deft and knowledgeable leader...
...As for radiation, its dangers are not all that clear, but wedo know that the granite in Grand Central Station emits more radiation than a nuclear-fired power plant...
...Studies show such trends will soon make the U.S...
...Radiation is a natural phenomenon...
...He coordinated Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...Unfortunately, Saddam was otherwise engaged in the last days of the Cold War...
...In but a couple of days he gathered intelligence reports and reports of military capabilities...
...These are the people who almost killed off the Seabrook nuclear power plant, raising its cost from $1 billion for two reactors to $6 billion for one, prompting the first bankruptcy of a major utility in fifty years, and causing power shortages in New England and higher energy bills...
...George Bush has been portrayed more variously as a "wimp," "Mr...
...In fact 95 percent has been produced either by nuclear energy or by coal, the latter being far less benign toward the environment than nuclear energy...
...Oil consumption in the production of electricity has jumped 32 percent from 1987 to 1989...
...Japan has doubled its reliance on nuclear power over the decade...
...The vigilant statesmanship of the Reagan-Bush years is again paying off, and its core value is resolve...
...The same procrastination that afflicts Washington's lawmakers in addressing the budget afflicts them in addressing the nation's energy needs...
...Most of this electricity has been Made in the USA...
...In light of the fact that modern society needs energy, the politicians' dithering has been irresponsible and cowardly...
...George Bush is showing him that the era of easy international terror and aggression is over...
...They have cowered before the anti-nuclear lobby's protests that nuclear energy is dangerous stuff, menacing life and leaf...
...He is sending troops into secret military installations built by us and our allies during the 1980s against just such a contingency as the present...
...Though we once led the world in nuclear development, and though 20 percent of our electricity has been safely generated by nuclear reactors during the past dozen years, not one utility during that period has sought a license to build a nuclear reactor...
...And, incidentally, Iraq's justification that it acted to liberate the Kuwaiti masses would have been a lot more compelling were Moscow still leading a Marxist-Leninist worldwide chorus...
...Perhaps even more interestingly he has managed an enormous number of variables...
...Aided by Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, he acts as his own Secretary of State...
...At the time of the 1973 oil embargo 17 percent of our electricity was supplied by oil...
...Now our depen10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1990 dence on oil is down to six percent, with nuclear energy up to 20 percent...
...EDITORIALS THE BUSH RESOLVE George Bush has just completed an V act of presidential leadership surpassing any similar effort by an American President in recent times—though only with modern technology could such leadership be imagined, and the fact that there is now no Cold War helped...
...For more than a decade the majority of political commentators have been either misconstruing the character of White House leadership or ignoring it...
...Resume," a "lapdog," a "befuddled liberal," a "nefarious conservative...
...Bush is cut from a different cloth...
Vol. 23 • October 1990 • No. 10
