Obama Administration Fires Its Only Environmentalist

 
 America hasn't had much in the way of an environmentalist president since Richard Nixon and before that Theodore Roosevelt, so we weren't exactly expecting Barack Obama to do anything bold or visionary when it came to such unimportant things as the air we breathe and the water we drink and the Earth we live upon. (At least Michelle Obama seems to care about the use of pesticides on food and such, so that's something, right?) And we're deep in a "recovery" that looks almost identical to "a terrible recession," so that's always an excuse for people who never cared anyway to say, "And we cannot worry ourselves with the Snail Darter or the survival of humanity on this planet because we got to get those smokestacks going again, in China probably, so we can ... uh, America is the greatest country on Earth , wherever that is." Tonight, we learn that the one real environmentalist in the whole Obama Administration is being tossed out because like so many other Americans, her job was deemed unnecessary because of the recession. (Her job was getting real climate change legislation and regulation in place before the entire world melts in twenty or fifty years.)

Politico won the night or whatever, so here it is:  

Carol M. Browner, President Barack Obama’s energy adviser, plans to leave the White House in coming weeks, White House officials said Monday night.

Browner, who is Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, was EPA administrator for all eight years under President Bill Clinton, and is one of the most experienced Washington hands in the West Wing.

Yeah get her out of there! Come back when you've spent your life on Wall Street greasing the wheels for Important Billionaires, Carol!

TheNYT  explains what is actually happening, or not happening:

But with the appointment of William M. Daley as chief of staff, that prospect [of Browner keeping a high profile job] appeared to evaporate and Ms. Browner was left with the choice of remaining in a relatively low-visibility job or returning to the private sector.

Ms. Browner is known as a savvy navigator of the bureaucracy and a strong voice for environmental protection in a White House that was focused more on health care and the economy. Her departure leaves the administration’s other major environmental and energy policy makers without a strong advocate at the White House.

But in the face of Republican skepticism about climate change and strong opposition to environmental regulation, the administration will be spending more time defending the modest policy gains of the past two years than advancing new proposals.

Obama has already said he won't even bother pushing carbon control regulations for the rest of this term. Yeah what's even the rush, right? THE CHILDREN IS OUR FUTURE, letthemdeal with it, when they're in high school. Centrist centrist centrist!