The president doesn't want to run the risk of allowing more affordable prescription drugs from Canada to come into the United States because he says they might kill us. At the same time, he wants us to breathe more mercury fumes that are already causing birth defects at an alarming rate and have made eating fish from about 40 states dangerous to your health.

Bush's order-relaxing rules on mercury emissions from coal-burning electrical power plants were made to pay political favors to polluters at the expense of public health.

Felice Stadler, a mercury pollution expert at the National Wildlife Foundation, says that Bush's gift to the corporations "is a dream come true for energy companies and a nightmare for children's health."

"I don't see how, in a time of war, in a time of uncertainty, you can change your mind because of politics," Bush twanged in Friday's debate.

He must have forgotten about his opposition to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the 9/11 Commission, and how, under political pressure, he did a complete about-face and supported both. Take another whiff of mercury and that might make sense.

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