The logging plan was consecrated in the name of fire prevention. The goal of the bill, Daschle said, "is to reduce the risk of forest fire by getting [logging] crews on the ground as quickly as possible to start thinning." It's long been the self-serving contention of the timber lobby that the only way to prevent forest fires is to log them first. The environmental movement has rightly countered that the real problem is a century of unbridled logging of old growth forests and fire suppression, which have created conditions ripe for the catastrophic blazes that are scorching the West this summer. In a single blow, the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society legitimized the timber industry's cockeyed claim. And now there will be hell to pay.

Surprised that such a deed could originate in the office of Tom Daschle? Don't be. Despite what the League of Conservation Voters might allege, Tom Daschle's never been much of an environmentalist, especially in his home state. Indeed, the leader of the Democrats in the senate has always carried water for the big timber and mining companies that have done so much damage to landscape of South Dakota.

Occasionally, he pipes up on high profile national issues, such as ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). But he rarely has his heart in it. Witness his woefully inept attempt to defeat the mad scheme to ship nuclear waste across the nation to Yucca Mountain.