The Hightower Lowdown

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Terrorism in Texas

From the frontlines of Homeland Security, I file this report about our ever-vigilant FBI, ATF, CIA, DWI, meter maids, and other police authorities who were PDQ, ASAP, and otherwise Johnnie-on-the-Spot when Georgetown recently had its own brush with Osama bin Laden's group of al Qaeda evildoers. Call it the case of "Expialidocious Explosiveness."

On Sept. 9 -- only two days prior to the anniversary of a day that will live in infamy -- Williamson County Sheriff's officers got the call that set off a local media frenzy, which quickly spread statewide, then nationwide, and perhaps all the way to Afghan caves where al Qaeda operatives were monitoring CNN. While Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge already had the nation on "Code Orange" alert, the Central Texas region suddenly flashed to "Code Red." The color upgrade came because the sheriff learned that 10 tubes of ammonium nitrate had been stolen. That's 330 pounds of the same highly explosive compound used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.

Here at last was justification for all of the money being spent to turn America into an edgy, garrisoned state, and agents of every stripe flocked to the Austin Powder Co., from which the explosives had been snatched at 4:30am.

Thanks to the massive show of police forces, the dirty terrorist perp was nailed within two days. Under grilling in a small, hot space, he quickly "cratered," said the sheriff's department, crying out: "It's me, it's me." Only ... he wasn't one of Osama's boys. He was just ol' Byron David, a 24-year-old local. And instead of 30 tubes of the explosive, only one had actually been heisted. And no evil was intended -- Byron said he just wanted to "blow it up and see what it would do." As the sheriff's spokesman put it, Byron "was more of a thrill seeker than a terrorist."

Billions of dollars for Homeland Security and we net Byron David?

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Bush Gets Hot About Global Warming

George W. is a global kind of guy -- he's a big promoter of corporate globalization, and, of course, he's launched his unlimited global war on terrorism. But mention global warming to him, and he turns into a flat-earth parochialist, flailing his arms, getting all red-faced, and sputtering and spewing that global warming is a trick, not really happening, and if it is happening it's not the fault of big industry, and if it is their fault there's nothing we're gonna do about it, so go fly a kite you environmental weenies!

Never mind that the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is all too real of a threat, and that 72% of Americans think we need to take immediate steps to deal with this threat. That's a lot of weenies, George.

What counts for Bush, however, are not the millions of concerned Americans, but the millions of campaign dollars put in his pockets by the corporate polluters causing the warming -- oil companies, electric utilities, automakers, and others. In the last election, he was the No. 1 recipient of their campaign cash and, in turn, he has put dozens of energy executives, lobbyists, and consultants in key positions to oversee energy policy.

How embarrassing, then, that the scientists in George's own Environmental Protection Agency issued a report concluding that (1) global warming is happening, (2) it's mostly caused by fossil fuel pollution, and (3) it will have disastrous global consequences if we don't act promptly to stop it. But rather than act -- or even act embarrassed -- Bush dismissed the scientific report with a wave of his hand, saying scornfully: "I read the report put out by the bureaucracy."

But, guess what? He never actually read it. His media flack later admitted this, curtly informing the media that "Whenever presidents say they read it, you can read that to be he was briefed."

Oh, thank you. But in George's case, we know that we can read that to be that he was bought -- no briefing necessary.