Bad timing

WASHINGTON - President Bush asked Congress to eliminate an $8.2 million research program on how to decontaminate buildings attacked by toxins — the same day a poison-laced letter shuttered Senate offices. -AP

Here comes the spin machine to the rescue:

White House budget office spokesman Chad Colton said that each of the administration's budgets, including its 2005 proposal, has "invested substantial resources" into studying ways of preventing and responding to bioterrorism.

Someone ought to tell Chad that Ricin isn't really a biological weapon.

But gets better (or maybe worse):

Buried in documents justifying the Environmental Protection Agency's budget plan is an acknowledgment that Bush's proposed research cut "represents complete elimination of homeland security building decontamination research."

In the documents, the agency said that losing the research money would "force it to disband the technical and engineering expertise that will be needed to address known and emerging biological and chemical threats in the future."

To which the Huh-Huh conservative will probably say:
But he landed on an aircraft carrier! An aircraft carrier! He knows about national security, he has the moral clarity to fight terrorism!