Greenie sweet talk: we don't buy it!(From The Publisher) (environmental communities)

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.

The late President Lyndon Johnson was fond of saying, "Come, let us reason together," whenever he had something he wanted to sell.

And nearly everybody dutifully "reasoned" with him because, standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing in at about 220 pounds in his heyday, he towered above most lawmakers, lobbyists and special envoys who understood that they jolly well had better reason with him. Besides, he almost always had something to give for the programs he was persuading them to support.

His handshake was crushing, and his bear hug could squeeze the wind right out of lesser men. Women kind of melted before him. It was power politics at its very best and nobody has played the game any better before or since LBJ.

Except for the environmental community, which, coincidentally, began to crop up about the time he stepped down. For a generation or more, the Greens have monkey wrenched their way into nearly every facet of public and private life from resource development to land and sea lock-up; the people be damned.

They've had their way and made lots of money from contributions to their causes, many of which have been Alaska-based "causes." The courts and margins in Congress have always gone along with them, and their campaign contributions. There was little need to care a fig about the common people. Until now.

Now, for the first time in a long time, when it looks likely that one of the environmental community's dearest money makers, the Arctic National Wildlife...