TNR suggests an electoral strategy for Democrats and a certain species of Republican:

it’s hardly a shock to hear that some Dems would prefer to set aside tackling climate change–especially so soon after a grueling health care fight. “We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming,” Indiana Senator Evan Bayh recently groused, “but I think it’s very difficult in the economic circumstances we have right now.”

Difficult, but maybe less so than Bayh thinks. The House has already passed its own climate bill, complete with a cap on heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and, in the Senate, Democrats have begun to get some welcome support from the other side of the aisle. Susan Collins is co-sponsoring a cap-and-dividend bill, which would essentially tax carbon dioxide at the source and refund most of the proceeds to households, while a few Republicans (like Lisa Murkowski) had positive things to say about last month’s Copenhagen accord, which put key developing countries on a path to curtailing their own emissions.

\Interestingly, one of the most forceful advocates for a Senate climate bill in recent weeks has been Republican Lindsey Graham. “All the cars and trucks and plants that have been in existence since the Industrial Revolution, spewing out carbon day-in and day-out, you’ll never convince me that’s a good thing for your children and the future of the planet,” he told a crowd in South Carolina, the day after being censured by Charleston County’s GOP for working with Democrats on the issue. “Whatever political pushback I get,” he added, “I’m willing to accept, because I know what I’m trying to do makes sense to me.” Lately, he’s been huddling with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman on a “tripartisan” bill to reduce emissions.

Some have argued that Congress would be crazy to take on an issue as divisive as climate change in an election year, but the Senate, with only one-third of its members up for reelection, is less susceptible to that calculus than the House. And election-year timidity may be more an invention of pundits than historical fact.

To us these people seem out of their minds. We’re in a crisis and these bozos are in cloud-cuckoo-land. (a) When 20$ of American men do are not employed, the number 1, number 2, and number 3 issue is jobs, jobs, jobs — good, private sector jobs. Which means government needs to help and get out of the way at the same time. Furthermore, even if we weren’t in a time of pronounced global cooling, why fiddle around with nonsense like this when it is perfectly clear that countries like China and India aren’t going to play along (except to go to conferecnes where they laugh at us behind our backs). Washington: fools and damned fools.

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