Commentary: I Support the President
by Rev. Michael S. Piazza

Hope for Peace & Justice recently joined a coalition of faculty and staff from Southern Methodist University and a group of United Methodist clergy to oppose the George W. Bush Presidential library being located in Dallas (www.StoptheLibrary.com). With Mr. Bush’s approval rating at record lows, I have to admit that it feels a bit like “piling on.” Still, it would kill me to see a city that we have worked so hard to transform be stigmatized as the official home of this presidency and the seat of his proposed $500 million think-tank. So, perhaps to ease my own conscience, I have been looking for something nice to say about the President, and I discovered that I actually agree with him.

There, I said it, and my nose didn’t grow. It is true. While Mr. Bush was deservedly panned for a staggeringly hollow State of the Union message, there were a couple of items that should have caught our attention and won our support. For one thing, he actually used the phrase “climate change” and called us to do something about it. I was beginning to wonder what world the conservatives were living in. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe has made it an embarrassing tenant of his faith that global warming is a fraud and succeeded in keeping most of his party toeing that line. Mr. Bush is to be congratulated for making the break to return to reality. Perhaps he realized that, someday, his daughters might have children and he wants his grandchildren actually to be able to breathe. Or perhaps he realized that he will soon be returning to live in Dallas, where the air is hazardous to breathe a good portion of the year. Whatever his motive, he deserves our gratitude.

The other issue we should be rallying to support him for is his call to raise the required fuel economy for cars, trucks and SUVs. While his actual proposal of a four percent per year increase seems very small, the cumulative effect could be tremendous over the course of 10 years. This would mean that a car that averages 21 mpg would have to average 31 in 10 years. With millions of vehicles on the road, this would result in a dramatic drop in oil consumption. While woefully inadequate as an energy policy or as a plan to reduce oil dependency, it is still a good idea and a step in the right direction.

Let’s support the President and pressure congress to pass clean, clear, simple legislation that requires automobile makers to do exactly what the president suggested.