YES, OK, hurray for President Bush. He decided last week to spend $235 million to buy back oil and gas leases and thereby protect the beaches of Florida's Panhandle and 765,000 acres of the Everglades. It's the right thing to do, and it's popular, as well.

Here's what's hard to figure out, though. The White House has pushed and pushed to allow oil companies to begin drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, though so far without success because of opposition in the Senate. It keeps running into obstructionists who complain that oil rigs might pose a threat to the Arctic environment.

Oh, that again. The Bush administration acts as though anyone who doubts that modern technology can ensure a clean environment plus a ready supply of oil at the same time must be willfully ignorant or worse. With the oil companies running all those green ads these days, who could still be worrying about their stewardship of the great outdoors?

So ... the Everglades? What's the issue there again?

It seems a lot of people in Florida don't like oil wells. Call them crazy, but they think drilling is bad for wildlife, tourism and beachfront property.

But Alaska and Florida are like apples and oranges. There's just no comparison.

In Alaska, you've got three apples, which, technically speaking, are in the bag, and which are sometimes referred to as Electoral College votes.

In Florida, on the other hand, you've got 27 oranges, which are threatening to spill out of their sack at any moment - or at least by November 2004.

There's no way you could confuse the two.

Now, an interesting further non-comparison would be with California, with its 55 artichokes. Californians don't like federal leases for oil drilling, either. So why has the White House refused to take any action there? It's simple. It's because those artichokes are already in somebody else's bag. They're not going to roll into Republican hands. Artichokes just don't do that, and they're kind of prickly and foreign, anyway. Who needs them?

Now, maybe this is missing one big point, otherwise known as Jeb Bush. The governor is running for re-election this year, and after he did so much to corral all those oranges for his brother back in 2000, how could the president not return the favor?

So think of this as the White House taking a stand for tourists, alligators and the GOP. Except for the latter, you've got none of those up in Alaska, anyway. What's to worry?