Friday, June 21, 2002 | 4:53 a.m.
Despite the Herculean efforts of true believers such as Richard Bryan and Grant Sawyer, I acknowledge being worn down by the tiresome metaphors (Is it really a mobile Chernobyl, folks?), the reflexive pandering by grandstanding pols, the opportunistic partisan finger-pointing and the some-times-chilling intolerance of any dissent from the anti-dump orthodoxy. I'm sick of it. Sick of watching it, sick of hearing it, sick of writing about it.
Yet, here we are, 20 years after, perhaps literally on the eve of a vote that could be the last one ever on this issue as a process started in 1982 is consummated (can't avoid those damn coital metaphors even now) within days or weeks. And I find myself surprised, after having my senses dulled by rhetorical bludgeoning and hollow promises, actually feeling astounded by what went on last week in the U.S. Senate.
As someone who has seen some liars in my time -- from Stewart Avenue to Grand Central Parkway to Carson Street to Pennsylvania Avenue -- the professional prevaricators who took to the Senate floor last week have reached a new nadir of chutzpah, disingenuousness and haughtiness.
It was nothing short of amazing to watch on successive days Republican senators take to the floor to express concern for the state they are trying to (may I say it one more time?) screw, reverence for Senate rules they want to subvert and history they are trying to revise.
This is a smattering of what nuclear dump proponents said, captured for all to see on C-SPAN, with earnestness and faux sincerity, following the president's lead and lying about what George W. Bush and others still insist is a decision based on -- talk about phrases I'm sick of hearing -- science, not politics:
Alaska's Frank Murkowski: "The resolution (to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto) gives the Department of Energy the go-ahead to begin the licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and that's simply all there is to it."
All there is to it? I can just hear Ben and James et. al. telling King George III on that July 4 of 226 years ago: "This is just the beginning of our desire to be independent, and that's simply all there is to it."
Murkowski again: "The solution that (was) proposed and which is included in the legislation was passage of a joint resolution coupled with suspension of procedures that would eliminate any opportunity to obstruct or delay. In other words, trying to make it fair to the state that was affected."
So that's what they were doing when they passed that measure that was designed to minimize science and maximize politics by giving the governor a phony veto and ensuring that a state with little political clout was chosen for the dump. They were being fair. Now I understand.
Minority Leader Trent Lott: "I want everybody to understand that nobody's trying to shove this in an unfair way."
No, of course not. That's why Republicans are so eager to get off the defense authorization bill to vote on Yucca Mountain a month before the 90-day clock expires.
One of the most annoying aspects of this issue -- and many others, actually -- is the lack of plain-spokeneness during the debate. If these Republicans would just be honest, I would have more respect for their intentions, which are at a minimum to bury the waste in what they see as a literal and political wasteland, and at a maximum to reimburse the energy and nuclear interests that own various folks who work along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Why couldn't we hear Lott or Murkowski or Idaho's Larry Craig simply declare on the floor: "Look, we have the votes, we just don't want all the responsibility. So we want Tom Daschle to bring this up so we don't look so culpable and then the Democrats won't try something on us if we take control next year. Besides, we want to get to this before too many people realize how many scientific questions remain unanswered, before too many people click on that mapscience.org website and before too many senators start getting unbought."
Instead, these Republicans act as if they are characters created by Lewis Carroll, running around with artificial urgency yelling, "We're late, we're late." And these Mad Hatters of the GOP are eager to get to the party that already has been paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute and others who helped pay the way to this inevitable conclusion.
They probably will get there, too. In politics, crime does pay. And no matter how criminal the targeting of Nevada and the manipulated science has been, this is about vote-counting now.
Maybe it's all hidden. Maybe the ad campaign has worked. Maybe people are furiously clicking on mapscience.org. Maybe Harry Ensign has had miraculous success -- John Ensign with his book of facts that has inculcated and influenced his colleagues and Harry Reid with his "you want a water project, fork over your vote" style.
But that seems unlikely. So once again, in another commonality of politics, bad behavior is rewarded. And guess who gets to pay?
Now that really makes me sick.
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