Legacywashing With the Post

The Washington Post's Peter Baker falls for administration spin in a jaw-dropping manner. Here's the lead:

As he addresses a conference on climate change this morning, President Bush will face not only a crowd of skeptics but the press of time. For nearly seven years, he invested little personal energy in the challenge of global warming. Now, with the end in sight, he has called the biggest nations of the world together to press for a plan by the end of next year.

This turnaround just didn't happen. The UN had a meeting on Monday aimed at building political momentum for a meeting to happen later in Bali aimed at kicking off negotiations toward an international treaty that will commit the world's countries to binding reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Bush didn't attend that meeting. Instead, he called this other meeting in an effort to subvert action on climate change. He hasn't in the past "invested little personal energy in the challenge of global warming." Rather, he's invested plenty of energy in undermining efforts to respond to the challenge of global warming and continues to do so by continuing to oppose mandatory emissions reductions.

This isn't brain science (it's climate science -- ha!) to move to address the challenge of global warming you need to move to address the challenge not just say you're addressing it while not doing anything. You need to, that is, unless all you really want is for Peter Baker to publish a misleading article about what you're doing in The Washington Post.

Comments

to move to address the challenge of global warming you need to move to address the challenge not just say you're addressing it while not doing anything

Remember when Bush said he was going to be the "CEO president"? This is what CEOs do. Instead of smacking down complaints by saying "no", they promise to consider the issue, promise to send out a memo, or, if it's serious, say he's forming a task force to look into it. It's not that he's being ineffective. This is just the CEO version of opposing the issue.

Posted by Tyro | September 28, 2007 11:19 AM

This is exactly how Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been "addressing" the challenge.

Posted by Neil in Ottawa | September 28, 2007 11:38 AM

It is funny to see Matthew accusing other media folks of misleading us on global warming, when Matthew himself posted (twice!) the other day that Bush "unsigned" Kyoto. Pot/kettle.

to move to address the challenge of global warming you need to move to address the challenge not just say you're addressing it while not doing anything

Of course, "just say[ing] you're addressing it while not doing anything" is exactly what most Europeans have been doing, despite the allegedly "mandatory" Kyoto treaty that they are subject to.

Posted by Al | September 28, 2007 11:46 AM

It's Al the troll! What up, Al? Did Kevin Drum chnage the locks on you?

Posted by penalcolony | September 28, 2007 11:50 AM

"Brain science"?

Posted by Mr. Noah | September 28, 2007 12:15 PM

The two clear signals that Bush, and his new BFFs Harper and Howard, are not serious about carbon emissions (but want to appear to be doing something):

1. Use of the word "aspirational" targets (BFF Harper's invention)

2. Use of the word "intensity" targets.

That is all you need to know.

Posted by McKingford | September 28, 2007 12:23 PM

Any and all "objective" articles on Bush's attempts to rescue his legacy aren't even worth looking at. Everyone knows he and the right wing have spent six years and millions of dollars denying climate change (among other scientific truths), and nobody's going to forget it just because Bush is now trying to beautify his wretched record.

Posted by tinisoli | September 28, 2007 12:37 PM

Hook, Line and Stinker.

Posted by FastMovingCloud | September 28, 2007 12:43 PM

"Of course, "just say[ing] you're addressing it while not doing anything" is exactly what most Europeans have been doing, despite the allegedly "mandatory" Kyoto treaty that they are subject to."

"Well, Mikey didn't eat his Life cereal, why should I have to!"

Yet again, two wrongs (assuming one actually was wrong) make a right.

And if ol' Bushieboy was as well informed about European lethargy regarding all things Kyoto as you appear to be, then why bother scheduling a meeting (exept maybe a little cya and legacy damage control).

Posted by Rihilism | September 28, 2007 12:58 PM

Is this about birdwatching again? Iesu christi, how many of those f***ers are there to look at, anyway? Can't these yoyos get a new hobby? Maybe drum corps or something?

On a more serious note, as much as Peter Baker is obviously a fraud with the moral compass of feral housecat, I have to respect the shameless, unethical ju-jitsu he engages in. Ignore the slimy slaps at Al Gore's movie, conveniently forget the unsuccessful attempts to create a climate change "controversy", elide the blatant choices of the Bush administration to get greased by energy companies for 6 years, and set the stage for Bush to propose a ridiculously stupid "plan" that anyone who passed junior high science class will righfully toss on the closest compost heap, at which point the mainstream media will all rise up as one to declaim, "obstructionist Democrats refuse to engage with Bush on climate change in America. Why don't they care about the environment? Could it be that radical forces have hijacked the left wing and are playing politics with the health of Americans?"

Posted by jonathan | September 28, 2007 1:12 PM

You'd think Howard would have a bit of wit about GW since his country's in the midst of the worst drought in over a century. Meteorologist optimism -- the drought will break this year! -- led farmers to borrow heavily to plant every usable cm2 this past year, and the rains failed yet again. Climatologists keep saying that Australia's going to be one of the chief targets of drought and that it isn't going to get better unless people actually do something about it.

So it goes.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 28, 2007 1:15 PM

Can anyone give me the name of an environmentalist that does not produce CO2 at a rate that they 'know' will destroy the planet?

Posted by mark | September 29, 2007 10:26 AM

"Can anyone give me the name of an environmentalist that does not produce CO2 at a rate that they 'know' will destroy the planet?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml

Can anyone give me the name of someone who actually knows what they are talking about that isn't expelling enough methane to smother us all?

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