Under the radar: Bush overturns roadless rules

It hasn't gotten much coverage what with idiots flying airplanes toward the White House and the Michael Jackson freakshow ongoing, but last week the Bush Administration overturned one of President Clinton's crowning environmental achievements- a ruling to cut off nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from road-building or development.

The overturning of the so-called roadless rule is, of course, an enormous windfall to the timber, mining and oil companies who bankrolled Bush's recent campaign. It's sort of like what Thomas Frank argues in What's the Matter with Kansas? You vote to stop abortion, you get tax cuts for the wealthy. You oppose gay marriage, you get a repeal of the estate tax. You vote against "activist judges," and you get millions of acres of bald, ravaged mountains, buried rivers, and higher profits for oil companies.