James Taranto points to a new op-ed by Paul Watson, the hoodie-clad vegan vigilante whose campaign to physically impede whaling is the the subject of a hit (and parodied) reality show.
The Obama Administration makes the George Bush administration look like a bunch of whale huggers. “W” may have done many things that many people did not like (like start a few wars and such) but he never sold out the whales and he created the largest marine sanctuary in the world. Barack has given the whales nothing but broken promises.
In an effort to ensure that American Inuit get to continue to murder Bowhead whales, the Obama Administration is ready to compromise with the whaling nations to let them kill more whales. No President since Ronald Reagan has betrayed the whales more than this one.
This was the first I’d heard of Watson’s beef, but he’s actually been talking about it for years.
The “betrayal” he’s talking about started with a 2010 proposal by the administration to suspend, for 10 years, the current moratorium on whaling. Their argument: It was a Swiss cheese moratorium that rogue nations were exploiting easily. The strategy directly contravened what Obama had promised Greenpeace, and it died, but – tell me if this sounds familiar – the administration has kept on looking for incremental bargains that the activist base views as inexcusable sell-outs.
