Some people get no respect

Christie Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator under Bush, scores points with some reality-based humans because she clearly is a GOP moderate. Which means, of course, she's solidly right wing. Still, that doesn't mean she shouldn't be trusted or respected. No, this means she shouldn't be trusted or respected. From the every reliable Jordan Barab at Confined Space:

I never thought much of former EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman, especially regarding EPA's fatally weak warnings about the hazards of the smoke and dust coming off the collapsed World Trade Center towers, and her inability to stand up to the White House's orders to soften the initial 9/11 press releases about the safety of the air in lower Manhattan.

But disappointment and anger is turning to outrage with newly released documents showing that Whitman actually conspired with the White House to falsely reassure New Yorkers that the air was safe.

In 2003, Whitman's then-spokeswoman, Tina Kreisher, was asked by an Environmental Protection Agency internal investigator "whether there was a conscious effort to reassure the public [in the fall of 2001].

"Ms. Kreisher said there was such an effort. This emphasis 'came from the administrator [Whitman] and the White House,' " according to newly released quotes from EPA papers.(New York Post)

Not only that, but Whitman apparently had financial interests in reassuring the public that all was well and that lower Manhattan could safely be reoccupied.

Meanwhile, Whitman's newly released financial-disclosure forms show that she said seven months before 9/11 that she would not get involved in any issue related to the finances of the Port Authority - which owns the WTC site - because she or her family owned PA bonds. Its finances could be impacted by lawsuits growing of the cleanup.

"I understand the following interests that belong to me, my spouse or my children present a conflict of interest," Whitman wrote at the time. She then listed various investments, including the bistate agency.

But Whitman was involved at Ground Zero despite that recusal, although she or her family also owned shares of Citigroup, whose insurance-company subsidiary, The Travelers, paid out hundred of millions of dollars in claims to downtown residents displaced by the attacks.

Critics said the documents indicate Whitman encouraged people to move back to near Ground Zero and work on the cleanup despite a health threat, which could have bolstered the bottom line of both the PA and Travelers.

That's because both the PA and Travelers now can argue in civil suits that they believed there was little or no danger from the air around the Trade Center based on statements made by the EPA.

From Confined Space

Being a principled, moderate Republican, although I strongly disagree with most of them on important issues, is not a reason to impugn a person's credibility or respectability. Being an unprincipled, profiteer who puts lives in danger for money and political expediency. That's a reason to impugn someone's moral character.

Someone like Christie Todd Whitman.

Clarification: A comment by anon33, below, alerted us to the strong possibility that bad writing on our part might lead some readers to believe we consider ourselves "principled Republicans." We hope we are principled, but the thought someone might think we are Republicans makes our blood run cold. The incriminating sentence in the last paragraph was meant to say that if one were principled, the fact that one was also a Republican would not be a reason in itself to impugn credibility or respect. Some might believe being principled and being a Republican is incompatible, but of course it all depends on the principles. We don't think we have a monopoly on being principled, so we left the possibility open. But Wittman doesn't deserve our respect or trust for the reasons given, the fact that many liberals consider her a principled Republican (which we don't).