Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>
>Preben Randhol wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
>> the environment.
>> 
>The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".

OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.

As ususal I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, although I have to say
that I've yet to see any *hard* evidence that Preben is wrong. However, you
can't really use the term "government" wrt the US as Preben does, because we
don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of which
is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one party,
and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll search in
vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the whole.

As for the president, its not his job to sign treaties. He can negotiate them,
and he can veto a congressional signature (which they can override), but
otherwise all he can do is talk. Our congress doesn't have to follow what he
says any more than yours does (perhaps even less). Think of him as sort of like
the King/Queen in a constitutional monarchy, but with veto power.

The presidential public position seems to be something along the lines of, "the
environment is important, as long as it doesn't undully burden business". So at
best, its not a top priority. But again, the *real* policy (at least outside our
shores) is whatever the individual members of our congress in the aggregate
decide it is.

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