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RMS Global Warmic

Obama admin’s full-speed-ahead on reordering our economy mid-recession with an onerous and controversial health-care initiative threatens to throw off-course the Obama admin’s efforts to reorder our economy mid-recession with an onerous and highly controversial climate-change initiative. Politico explains … but neglects to mention the iceberg:

Health care reform remains the focal point of legislative policymaking in Washington. And that may not change for a while. Nobody thought the current debate would be easy or fast. But everyone agrees it has extracted nearly all the oxygen out of the Capitol and taken longer than expected.

The extended debate about health care has inflicted collateral damage on other initiatives. Climate change is one of the most obvious. It’s a major White House and Democratic priority. Yet, like health care, it’s also proved equally contentious and partisan.

The House passed its version of the legislation in June by a razor-thin 219-212 vote. Forty-four Democrats voted against the measure. Now the action has turned to the Senate, but momentum has stalled. Sen. Barbara Boxer — the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that has jurisdiction over the bill — has no Republican support among her colleagues. Several other senators, including John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), have been trying to find bipartisan common ground. But those efforts — to date — have not gained a lot of altitude, either.

Whatever the legislation’s future path, it’s hard to imagine breaking the logjam on the issue without aggressive White House involvement. President Barack Obama and his team have three distinct options. They can dramatically scale back the bill passed by the House and craft a “climate change lite” or “enhanced energy” package, focusing more on energy exploration, nuclear power expansion and alternative energy incentives than the more controversial cap-and-trade regulations. Or they can just let the Senate efforts die on the vine, and let the Environmental Protection Agency continue to pursue an aggressive regulatory approach. Finally, Obama can double down and try to lobby the Senate for something closer to the House bill.

Then, there’s the dreaded Option Four. They could admit that the bill is absurd, acknowledge that it is based on concepts that are scientifically highly controversial and at odds with current data at best, and at worst, a complete jury-rigged fabrication, and withdraw it.

Politico fails to mention last week’s late breaking news, that leading climate scientists have been playing a bitter, deceptive and manipulative shell game with the facts. Politico neglects to consider what effect, politically, that might have on the process. Given that the prevalent take by major newspapers and media outlets was that the Hadley CRU email hacking scandal “fuels skeptics” rather than “undermines zealots,” maybe Politico’s omission correctly suggests that it won’t be a political consideration going forward. I wouldn’t bet on it. 

But Option Four would require one of those statesman-like actual governing moments that the president so far has dodged. The kind where he gets up and says he was wrong, the great minds were wrong, or at least, in this case, there is no evidence of an imminent crisis that requires dramatic action that is likely to be ineffective while being highly destructive; the science is not settled, in fact, it appears to have been cooked; and it is time to reconsider. Don’t look for this moment at a White House near you.

That gets to the other thing Politico doesn’t address. That the most imminent disaster facing this administration is its pending impact with its own failure to accomplish anything. To mix disaster and warming metaphors, it’s like the Titanic is charging through the North Atlantic, trying to make record time to New York, thinking that all the ice got melted. That, you can watch for on a small screen near you. The impact promises to play out dramatically, in slow motion. With poignancy and drama as the band plays on, steerage gets locked down, and maybe even a couple of high-profile power brokers are last seen bravely waving bye bye to the lifeboats. Also, with lots of deck-chair rearrangement.

Uh oh. Obamacare support hits a new low. Rasmussen via HotAir. Start bailing! (Doesn’t matter, Gateway notes … they’ll ram it down your throat anyway.) About the iceberg, HotAir reports it was just spotted. Inhofe calls for Warmergate hearings.

Here’s some cold water for you, via Surber: SNL and NYT spank Obama on the spending.

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Topics: Obama, pols, warmalism

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 6:55 am Comments (3) on Monday, November 23, 2009

3 Responses to “RMS Global Warmic”

1. mattjduffy Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am

   … hacking scandal “fuels skeptics” rather than “undermines zealots,” — fantastic point!

2. RebeccaH Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   You know what’s going to be the fun thing about all this? Watching the in-the-tank media and Obama cultists scramble to cover their behinds when the Shinola really starts hitting the fan. I’ve already stocked up on popcorn.

3. mojo Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 pm

   All aboard the RMS Tyrannic! Next stop, the Grand Banks!

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