TPMtv Transcript: Thursday, June 21, 2007
JOSH MARSHALL: Hi this is Josh Marshall from TPM Media. It’s Thursday June 21st, 2007. Just after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the EPA put out a series of press releases reassuring people in lower Manhattan that the air quality was safe and people could go back to living and working in the area. Well it turned out that wasn’t true or at least the EPA had no test to back that up and we know that subsequently many people have gotten sick.
Well in 2003 the EPA Inspector General issued a report that said that the Whitehouse, specifically a group called the Council on Environmental Quality headed by James Connaughton forced the EPA to remove warnings from those press releases and replace them with reassuring statements telling everybody that everything was safe. Well this week and next week the House and Senate are holding hearings looking into exactly why that happened. Yesterday James Connaughton, the guy who made the EPA change those press releases went before the Senate and tried to explain, justify, bamboozle about what he had done, and we want to show you some clips of that testimony. Take a look.
(Video montage of senate testimony)
Next week congressman Jerry Nadler is going to be holding a hearing in the House, and he’ll have former EPA administrator and former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman up there testifying. He’ll be asking her about her role in this incident. I’m Josh Marshall from TPM Media, and we’ll talk to you next week.
How could they let him get away with that non denial denial? He spoke all around the questions to the point you really don't know what he said after he was done saying it. And when finally pressed he comes back with I disagree. WTF. Let me see if I got this straight: He had to pick and point and choose from thousands of reports that changed as he released them to the press to say there was a major difference in air quality for fire fighters and those on the ground who weren't away from ground zero whom he advised to seek immediate medical attention but that wasn't the same as those outside of Manhattan so the press releases had to show the difference in alarm when we released them. Am I on the right track here? I agree with your conclusion...how is this guy still in office? (btw...I couldn't read small print on side of screen and trying to find place to show me what it stated.)
June 21, 2007 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could someone please tell me why President Bush didn't just disband all his cabinets, send the folks home, and save the taxpayers some money? He apparently has never felt a real need for them... or their expertise.
He must really believe the passage that all of man's beliefs are but nonsence...
June 21, 2007 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...how is this guy still in office?"
Why do you ask? His testimony ably demonstrates the obfuscational skills prized second only to loyalty by BushCo.
One gets the impression these jerkwads sit around with drinks after a such a day as today congratulating the one who testified. It wouldn't surprise me to hear they consider it all a game with a point system based on the brazen mendacity/non-sequitorality of each response.
June 22, 2007 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a New Jerseyan (albeit one that was too young to vote for her) I must say that Whitman is a disgrace. All these sick people, dying people, sick and dying because she was too gutless to do the right thing! By now we shouldn't be surprised that the Administration chose politics above all else but it's sad Whitman played along.
And meanwhile the Administration ignores these people while they lay sick and dying... of course not before they got a really good "flag raising" shot they could put next to Iwo Jima. I guess we can't be surprised by Walter Reed, body armor, etc... we all saw this coming. They tried to warn us.
June 26, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink