President nicer on Dalai Lama award, bird talk

'Go green,' the Dalai Lama tries to teach Bush

WASHINGTON -- Bush has had a terrible presidency, but he recently did two things I think deserve mention.

The President and Congress showed some heart in recently giving the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor to the Dalai Lama. They also refused to fully bow to China's strong complaining about it.

The Dalai Lama deserves praise, and China deserves more scrutiny of its human rights record.

GW also made some welcome remarks today at an eastern National Wildlife Refuge about bird conservation.

His administration has done a very poor job on the environment so far, and, don't believe his hype, the President's support as reflected in his budget request for the National Wildlife Refuge System is dismal. But I appreciate his environmental talk. At least he had to think about it today.

Bush's political advisers are clueless for holding the 'green bird talk' event as a stopover on the President's trip to meet Dick Cheney at one of his mansions. Any link to his fellow oil man Cheney makes Bush's environmental spin even more tough to believe.

But Bush has to walk some real green walk, which may be like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. If he's serious, he should start to use some of his Presidential authority to protect, not attack, the environment.

A good, but very unlikely, move by Bush and Congress would be ending the immoral and failed Iraq war, which is a huge stress on the national budget, and put more real money toward conservation, clean air, energy and water.

Bush has a chance still to 'go green,' but given his dirty history America and the world will probably have to wait until the Dems win the White House next year for real environmental progress, depending on what Dem may win. Bill Richardson would be very good for diplomacy and the environment.