Last Straw: Bush Capitulates on Global Warming

President Bush reacted energetically to the 9/11 attacks on America and delivered serious tax cuts early in his first term. Other than that, he demonstrated criminal incompetence on all issues important to the Conservative movement. From borders, language and culture to fiscal responsibility, he made things worse. He appointed Liberals to all senior positions, including Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, he betrayed the economy, he betrayed Israel, and now…

Fiscal Conservatives have accused him of spending like a drunken sailor, hastily apologizing to drunken sailors, who could not possibly spend as irresponsibly as the Bush administration.

Evangelicals have been alienated by the administration’s betrayal of Jewish rights in the Holy Land. His personal friendship with the Saudi oil tics has had the same effect as rubbing salt on open wounds. His inability to recognize the global Jihad and effectively combat it will be his most devastating legacy.

His stealth attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens and open the borders would have laid the foundation for the eventual disappearance of the United States. Needless to say, it angered everyone. A massive Conservative grass roots mobilization stopped the nonsense, temporarily.

Family Values and Judicial Conservatives vigorously opposed the appointment of a Liberal Bush crony, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. His previous appointee, John Roberts, was a moderate originalist with many Liberal friends to provide character references. Conservatives managed to kill the Miers nomination and forced Bush to select a true Conservative originalist, Sam Alito, whose elderly mother lovingly stated on camera, “Of course he is against abortions. I raised him well.”

One can go on and on, but let’s get to the latest demonstration of Bush’s incompetence and Liberal tendencies. Evidently, the President is now ready to embrace Al Gore’s massive government power grab and vast erosion of individual freedoms, under the guise of combating ‘temperature change’. The Washington Times reports that Bush is preparing a global warming initiative. Idiot!

She said the administration’s discussions, both internally and with Congress, are building toward an expected debate on climate change in the Senate in June and toward the next G-8 meeting in July, when the U.S. would like to have a more specific conversation about goals for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

At the end of this week, U.S. officials will be in Paris for a meeting with officials from other major economic powers, where climate change is expected to be on the table. Sources in the administration and in Congress say this meeting explains the White House push.

Mrs. Perino, though, stressed that the White House does not expect countries to come to the meeting with specific proposals.

Many scientists say humans are contributing to climate change through increased carbon dioxide emissions from industry, power generation, automobiles and other sources. Some governments, including European nations, have enacted rules to try to limit their emissions, though opponents say those rules end up hurting their economies without much environmental benefit to show for it.

With Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the remaining major presidential candidates, all favoring new controls on greenhouse-gas emissions, Mr. Bush could be trying to lay the groundwork for the next president.

All three candidates are on record in favor of a cap-and-trade system, such as the Europeans have. The system sets an overall limit on carbon emissions and allows polluters to buy credits from companies that stay below their carbon targets.

The congressional and administration sources said it’s not clear whether Mr. Bush will go that far this week.

But Brian Kennedy, spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research, said Mr. Bush should realize that the U.S. is already ahead of the Europeans.

“U.S. taxpayers are already spending more than $40 billion a year to address climate change, and to date we’re achieving better results than the Europeans are under a bureaucratic regulatory framework,” he said. “That should be kept in mind before any rash — or political — decisions are made inside the White House. Excessive regulations would come with significant economic consequences and additional costs for consumers.”

Christopher C. Horner, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming,” said the Bush administration should have seen the regulatory problems long ago and that the president is trying to solve them the wrong way.

“There’s a way to responsibly do this, but calling for a bill isn’t it. Democrats — and all presidential candidates — desperately want Bush to take ownership of the issue before he goes, leaving them free of the burdens of responsibility for their rhetoric,” Mr. Horner said.

He said Mr. Bush should have been spending the past two years pointing out that even as the U.S. reduces the rate of growth of carbon emissions, it is taking manufacturing jobs from Europe. Nations that adopted strict carbon emissions are facing economic consequences while finding the goals impossible to meet, he said.

“The U.S. is the world leader in reducing the rate of growth of CO2 emissions while also growing its economy — faster on both counts, as with population as well, than its principal antagonist, Europe, which is suffering for reasons of political ‘face’ under a failed scheme that the Democrats and McCain amazingly want to burden us with,” he said.

James L. Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Keith Hennessey, a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush, got an earful Wednesday when they briefed House members on the options the White House is considering.

One person familiar with the meeting said several members, including Republican Reps. John Shimkus of Illinois and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, told the White House it was making a mistake if it called for congressional action.