Editorial: Yucca Mountain lies

Friday, June 4, 2004 | 5:34 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 5 - 6, 2004

In today's Sun there is an excellent commentary by political writer Martin Schram, who describes the Bush campaign's television advertising blitz as the Big Lie Strategy because it distorts Democrat John Kerry's record in the Senate. The journalistic equivalent of what the Bush campaign is engaging in can be found on the same page in a commentary by George Will. The Washington Post's nationally syndicated columnist attacks Kerry for supporting Nevadans in our fight against Bush's plan to bury nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Will asserts that Kerry is siding with Nevada solely because of a cold political calculation. "Kerry's message to Nevadans -- essentially, 'I feel your hypothetical pain' -- testifies to his readiness to do whatever it takes to win," Will writes. It is revealing, for starters, that Will falls for the Bush lie -- that there isn't any danger associated with Yucca Mountain. What he refers to as "hypothetical pain" is the shipping of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste by way of unsafe railroads and highways, and the burial of it at a geologically unsafe site.

Also omitted from Will's column is the salient fact that Kerry consistently has been with Nevada on this issue -- including when it counted -- and not just when he's running for president. In 2000 the Massachusetts senator voted to sustain President Clinton's veto of a bill that would have made it much easier to ship nuclear waste to Nevada. Two years later Kerry voted against Bush's plan to permanently send nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain. That's called character. It's in stark contrast to Bush, who in 2000 did whatever it took to win Nevada's electoral votes -- and the election. Bush lied to Nevadans by pledging to use "sound science" in determining the fate of Yucca Mountain, which is in an active earthquake zone and one of the worst places in America to store nuclear waste. So much for Bush's 2000 campaign promise -- to restore "honor and dign ity" to the White House -- and Will's sorry attempt to show which candidate is motivated solely by political considerations.