Poor Bush, he just can’t get a break. He announces a shiny new climate-change strategy, and what does he get? Nothing but grief.
Nancy Pelosi called it "the same stale proposals he has repeatedly put forward to the international community."
Al Gore called it "purely and simply smoke and mirrors [that] has the transparent purpose of delaying the efforts that could start now."
Dan Froomkin called it an "attempt to muddy the debate about the issue and derail European and U.N. plans for strict caps on emissions."
Britain and Germany are not amused:
Britain and Germany yesterday joined forces to warn President George Bush that talks on climate change must take place within a United Nations framework and not in an ad hoc process floated last week by Bush.
…
‘For me, that is non-negotiable,’ the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of the need to ensure that climate change negotiations take place within the existing UN framework.
And what about the right? What’s the reaction from Bush’s eternally faithful base? Mark Levin says this to the president:
You expanded the federal role in education, and we held our nose because of the war. You signed McCain-Feingold in the dead of night, and we held our nose because of the war. You expanded Medicare by adding prescription drugs, and we held our nose because of the war. You increased farm subsidies, and we held our nose because of the war.
Today you disparage us for opposing a massive amnesty program that endangers our economy and national security. Today you even embrace the religion of global warming, a stunning shift from prior policy (your administration even went to the Supreme Court and argued correctly that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant). What’s a conservative to do?
I won’t answer that last question.
