Think I'm exaggerating? That's what the latest Frank Luntz-type memo from the GOP House Conference Communications Office amounts to.
See
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/032504G.shtml
On February 4, the Conference put out a memo to all House GOP press secretaries telling them to say that "Global warming is not a fact", that the Bush Administration's own EPA is greatly exaggerating the extent of water pollution in the US, and that -- here's the real gem -- "Links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy."
While there's plenty of data that fully rebuts the first two claims as BS, this one about childhood asthma is much worse because it is nothing less than an attack on America's children. It's on the level of a "cigarettes don't hurt you" claim. When EPA put out its tighter air quality standards in 1995 (including the particulate standard particularly relating to asthma), it was supported by several hundred peer-reviewed studies, the substantive solidity of which was directly challenged by the American Trucking Association suit against the standards. The Supreme Court's decision -- by the same right-wing dominated court that put Bush into office -- upholding the standards specifically affirmed their standing as an unequivocally solid scientific basis for the regs.
What this memo means is that Republicans are explicitly advocating lying about the effects of the pollution that is literally strangling children in areas affected by high levels of air pollution.
You couldn't have an issue that hits people closer to where they live than this Republican assault on our children and our families. The Kerry campaign and all Democratic candidates should use this memo to say that the Republican party is controlled by people who are terrorizing Americans' family values. In their worship of corporate profits, the Republicans have declared war on the health and survival of our children.