Goin’ nu-kew-lar??

Our fearless leader may have some difficulty pronouncing the word, but the Bushman is crystal clear about what he considers a key component of our energy future: Fire up those nukes, boys!

This turn of events has resulted in a fair amount of attention being paid to former Michigan resident Paul Gunter.

The Taylor Township native and Northern Michigan University grad is popping up all over the place these days, appearing in such mainstream media as Time magazine, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC and NPR.

Gunter certainly has the credentials to provide a counter-balance to Bush’s pro-nuclear agenda. In 1976 he helped found the Clamshell Alliance, a group he says essentially coined the rallying cry of “No Nukes” and helped spawn a nationwide movement against the industry.

These days he is director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the nonprofit Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

So, what does Gunter think of the coverage of Bush’s proposed energy plan?

“All too often, the media is swallowing this hook, line and sinker,” Gunter told News Hits in a phone interview from his Washington, D.C., office. “There are a lot of tough questions that need to be asked.”

Like, huh, what are you guys going to do with all that new radioactive waste that will be created?

“It’s certainly irresponsible to accelerate the generation of nuclear waste,” says Gunter. “You can’t get a permit to build a house unless you have a waste disposal system, yet we have an entire industry that has been operating for 50 years, producing a growing mountain of nuclear waste that they don’t know how to dispose of.”

The only good thing about all this is that Gunter and his cohorts aren’t just opposed to new reactors. They’d like to see them all shut down, and Bush is shaping up to be the biggest builder of the no-nukes crusade since Three Mile Island went on the fritz.

“We’re much, much busier than we were a year ago,” reports Gunter. “The Bush administration and the nuclear industry push is doing much for revival of anti-nuclear resistance, and we fully anticipate it to grow.”