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“The presidency of George W. Bush won’t be remembered as a particularly green one,” said Doug Bates in _The Oregonian_, “but it will certainly boast an admirable shade of blue.” Bush on
Tuesday sealed his legacy as “the Teddy Roosevelt of the oceans” by creating the world’s largest protected marine sanctuary, three underwater national parks covering 195,000 square miles of
"priceless and amazing” Pacific Ocean. Combined with an earlier reserve off Hawaii, Bush has now set aside more than 300,000 square miles of ocean, said _USA Today_ in an editorial.
That’s praiseworthy, but it's too bad Bush only takes the green route “when there is no substantial business interest arguing the other side.” When money is at stake, he almost always
sides with big business over the environment. Yes, the newly protected areas are “staggeringly far away and not notably prized” by “corporate interests,” said _The New York Times_ in an
editorial. But—“strange but true”—Bush “is going down in history as a protector of the oceans.” This “environmental trophy” comes with a few “enormous asterisks”—the areas could have been
bigger, the protections “more stringent”—but he gets to put it on his mantel. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple
perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE SIGN UP FOR THE WEEK'S FREE NEWSLETTERS From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly
to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Given those asterisks, said Vikki Spruill in _The
Washington Post_, “what is most significant about this move is the opportunity it creates for President-elect Barack Obama.” Bush took a significant step in protecting our crucial ocean
ecosystem, but Obama can build on it to create “a blue presidential legacy” that even “Teddy Roosevelt would envy.” A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best
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