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Robert Redford slams Bush
23/09/2004 09:30 - (SA)
Las Vegas - The Bush administration is "intentionally blind" to the needs of the environment and has rolled back years of advances in improving air and water quality, actor and activist Robert Redford said on Wednesday.
"Sadly, the erosion that's occurred is disastrous, frightening and dangerous," Redford said.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Environmental Accountability Fund, a political action committee, Redford said he is insulted when President George W Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney tout their status as Westerners.
"I take particular offence as a Westerner when I see all the swagger and all the strutting. .... And I think, `What do they know about the West?"' said Redford, who has homes in California and Utah. "It's synthetic. It's fake."
America needs more bipartisanship efforts, Redford said recalling the 1970s when he worked to help pass the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
"Remember the old days when we all fought tooth and nail, but we worked together to come to some sort of solution that could be bipartisan?" Redford said. "God forbid we could ever let things slide, that we lose that balance and we end up with something that could be divisive, totalitarian, mean, narrow. That's where we are now."
Bush campaign spokesperson Tracey Schmitt dismissed Redford's claims, and said Bush has proposed a number of policies beneficial to the environment.
- AP
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