Via Andrew Sullivan, the obsequious rhetoric of Power Line:
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. But consider Bush's latest master stroke: the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South Korea; these six countries account for most of the world's carbon emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement. The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control technology, and the pact's members will contribute to a fund that will help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact's stated goal is to cut production of "greenhouse gases" in half by the end of the century.
What distinguishes this plan from the Kyoto protocol is that it will actually lead to a major reduction in carbon emissions!
No wonder Power Line is so popular -- this makes Rush Limbaugh look like an independent thinker. And, of course, the author (John Hindraker) fails to mention that Bush's plan has no enforcement mechanisms. What a visionary! All we have to do to cut carbon emissions is make vague promises of long-term reductions! He's the Van Gogh of environmental politics! The Einstein of carbon emissions!
Man, a world apart. To me the first paragraph reads like someone's dripping-with-sarcasm characterization of a Bush-worshipper. I would be embarrassed to fall for a politician like that.
Posted by: Noumenon | August 01, 2005 at 02:44 AM