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Surprise: Jaime Rubin and the Dems Lie About McCain on Hamas

Former Clinton State Department spokesman Jaime Rubin pens a blatantly dishonest op-ed in today's Washington Post: Hypocrisy on Hamas - McCain Was for Talking Before He Was Against It. This isn't just a mistake - Rubin himself conducted the interview of McCain that he discusses in his op-ed - this is a calculated lie that the mainstream media is propagating. Read the whole thing, but here is the critical part:

I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Rubin spins that as McCain acknowledging that once Hamas took over Gaza, it became a legitimate player and he would talk with them with no preconditions. There's another way to view McCain's response, of course - dealing with them "one way or another" is not the Senator granting Hamas legitimacy, but is a threat to the terrorist group - as in let's see how Hamas handles their newfound 'respectability'. If they change, that's good. If they don't, they should expect serious repercussions. But since that quote in the op-ed is the only information that Rubin provides directly from McCain on that issue, Rubin's spin is believable.

Fortunately, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air does the hard work that the Democrats don't want you to see - he actually finds statements made by McCain about Hamas and Gaza contemporaneous to the aforementioned interview. And from those statements, it's quite clear what John McCain means:

In the wake of yesterday’s Palestinian elections, Hamas must change itself fundamentally - renounce violence, abandon its goal of eradicating Israel and accept the two-state solution. These elections are evidence that democracy is indeed spreading in the Middle East, but Hamas is not a partner for peace so long as they advocate the overthrow of Israel.

Apparently in coordination with Rubin's op-ed, the Left is spreading around a YouTube short made up of a clip of McCain's response to Rubin's question, followed by clips of McCain talking about Obama's endorsement by Hamas and Obama's infamous "losing his bearings" quip. Luckily, Morrissey finds another YouTube clip of an appearance by McCain on CNN on the same day as the Rubin interview. In that clip, there is no question where McCain stands on Hamas:

"...hopefully that Hamas, now that they are going to govern, will be motivated to renounce this commitment to the extinction of the state of Israel. Then we can do business, we can resume aid, we can resume the peace process. It's very, very important though that they renounce this commitment."

The Democrats are forced to lie about things like this because they need to take the focus off of the effect of controversial recorded statements made by Obama, all in their correct context, that their candidate is now running away from. The bad thing for Obama and the Democrats is that McCain has such an extensive record of his stances on issues, both written and on tape, that it will be almost impossible for the Democrats to mischaracterize him, at least for any extended length of time. On the other hand, the good thing for Obama and the Democrats is that the media is on their side, so they'll never dig up things like Ed Morrissey did to rebut either Obama or his minions like Rubin - even when they know its out there.

One other problem is already apparent in this new national "McCain vs Obama" campaign. John McCain has an annoying habit of getting too cute sometimes, and at other times playing to his more liberal audiences to get a particular reaction. He likes it when the media shows him love and is constantly searching for that - and he still doesn't realize that the media loved him because they hated Bush. Jaime Rubin is one of the fashionable Leftist elite media members when he's over in Davos Switzerland, where he interviewed the Senator. McCain was one of the lesser fashionable elites in Davos solely because of his 'maverick' status and opposition to President Bush. During the Davos interview, McCain could have been just as clear with Rubin on Hamas as he was later in the CNN interview talking to someone in Atlanta - he chose not to, perhaps out of deference to the questioner and the setting. Having said that, Rubin's a smart guy. I'm certain that he knows exactly where McCain was coming from.

I hope McCain is learning his lessons quickly - one of which is that the media is no longer his friend.

An Overview of Today's Democratic Party

Tom Veal has a wonderful analysis of the makeup and appeal of today's Democratic Party over on his Stromata Blog. Titled A Conspectus of Today’s Democratic Party, a close reading of it makes one wonder why, with a little bit of a conservative backbone, the Republican Party can't target and defeat these folks.

The Democrats’ electoral base has three pillars: unionized and government workers, blacks and Hispanics. Those are the groups from which the party receives the bulk of its votes. Others, such as feminists, college professors and (to a rapidly diminishing extent) Jews, may be similarly lopsided in their voting patterns, but they are not very big.

Strikingly different is the party’s intellectual leadership, which is overwhelmingly upper class, affluent well-educated, and contemptuous of hoi polloi who “cling to guns and religion”. In manners, morals and ideals, a great gulf is fixed between this intelligentsia and the average Democrat (including the average black or Hispanic Democrat). At times it must be bridged on an ad hoc basis, as when the party occulted its advocacy of gun control laws. Elsewhere, bridges can’t be built at all: Radical feminism, same-sex marriage and affirmative action are nearly as unpopular with the Democratic as with the Republican base, but they are too precious to the Democratic intelligentsia to be abandoned or compromised. The work-around has been to maneuver them into the judicial system, out of sight of the ballot box. Vide the California Supreme Court’s decision today overturning a ban on same-sex marriage that voters had approved overwhelmingly. Gun control nearly followed the same course, except that the courts balked at expansive theories of gun makers’ and sellers’ liability for everything done with their products.

The one major area in which left-wing ideological preferences overlap with the interests and desires of the Democratic base is personal economic security. Liberals believe that the government can guarantee good jobs at good wages to everyone and provide an effective shield against financial misfortune. Voters with relatively low incomes and little capital to fall back on in an emergency would like to believe that, too. There lies the appeal of the progressive agenda of government management of the national economy.

For all the navel-gazing that I've been doing about the GOP and conservatism, Tom reminds me that it's also helpful to look carefully at our opponent - and learn as much about them as possible. What's their appeal and strength, and what are their weaknesses. The media issue is always going to be there - conservatism never gets a fair shake, and the actions and inactions of today's GOP has quite possibly forever maligned the term. It's a remarkable piece. Read it all.

Islamofascism Alive and Well in America

There's a troubling report on FoxNews.com, North Carolina Web Site Said to Be 'Gateway Drug' To Terror, that tells the tale of a 22 year old American who promotes al Qaeda and its ideology on an English language website targeting a receptive audience in the United States. His site was originally based in the United States, but has changed IP providers and is now currently hosted from Amman, Jordan:

When former Guantanamo inmate Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi blew up an Iraqi police station — and himself — in April, a U.S.-based Web site was quick to post a reaction.

"This is what you call a success story," Revolution.Muslimpad said of the homicide attack, which killed six. It described al-Ajmi as a hero, a "martyrdom bomber" who sacrificed "his life for the sake of Islam."

The site is believed to be the brainchild of a 22-year-old American Samir Khan of Charlotte, N.C.

The story also includes a link to this particularly vile website. I won't bother, for obvious reasons.

Things like this immediately make me think of two things. First, it's an unfortunate fact that Islamofascism does appeal to certain types of individuals in the United States. Second, we don't have to like it, but we have to tolerate the existence of sites like this if we want to continue to live in a free society. A Republican Congressman being interviewed for this story sums up the issue that this site raises:

"You have to protect the right to free speech," said Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who learned of the blog in a congressional briefing in 2007, when Khan warned of a "special gift" to be given to Manhattan on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The article also points out that there are other U.S. based radical Muslim bloggers, including one who goes by the name of Yousef al-Khattab blogging from Queens, New York. Al-Khattab's original name was Joseph Cohen. That bring up another point - that potential Islamofascist terrorists or those behind Islamofascist terrorists in the United States will probably not look Middle Eastern.

Having already pontificated on my belief in free speech, I would hope that the authorities are doing everything in their power to track this site, monitor its posts, and find out who is using it. If other private individuals try to bring the site down, that's fine as well. But the government shouldn't be the ones doing it.

That changes, of course, if the site moves from idolizing Islamofascism and terror to actually directing it, via instructions either overt or hidden. It's at that point that my appreciation of free speech evaporates, as would the people behind the site - hopefully.

Gates Criticizes DOD Reactions During Iraq War

There's an excellent article from the Associated Press this morning about a speech Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave last night to the Business Executives for National Security. Being an AP article, it attempts to frame the issue as a "Gates Blames Rumsfeld" story, but one you get past that, Gates' remarks point out something that many of us have been screaming about for years - the Department of Defense is a hugely inefficient bureaucracy, and it has remained such a bureaucracy for the duration of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. That means that the controlling factors behind the Pentagon's responses to challenges such as the emergence of more powerful IEDs were internal politics and procurement, not what was the best and quickest way to help our troops and win the wars.

"We must put our defense bureaucracies on a war footing with a wartime sense of urgency," Gates said, according to a text of his prepared remarks provided by the Pentagon. He was delivering the speech at a ceremony in which he was receiving the business group's Eisenhower Award for his wartime leadership.

..."A lesson I learned fairly early on was that important elements of the defense establishment were not at war," he said in his prepared remarks. "The needs of those in combat too often were not addressed urgently or creatively" because too many people in the Pentagon were "preoccupied with future capabilities and procurement programs, wedded to lumbering peacetime process and procedures, stuck in bureaucratic low gear."

For this problem I fault many of the entrenched powers in the Pentagon and Congress. Those are the long-timers - Rumsfeld et. al. were short-term political appointees, unable to change the culture. In fact, they were roundly criticized for attempting to do so. It's Congress who controls the money, and hence controls the Pentagon. If we had effective leadership in Congress, they could have grabbed the Pentagon's bureaucracy by the throat and streamlined everything, citing the need to do so during wartime. Instead, the Republicans waffled and the Democrats have held hearings - not on ways to fix the problems at the Pentagon with things like procurement, but on whether or not contracts were put out for bid, or if favored military contractors got huge contracts.

It's an embarrassment that Congress shares with the Pentagon. Congratulation to Secretary Gates for finally highlighting the problem.

Bush Throws Out Line, Nervous Obama and Dems Swallow Hook, Line and Sinker

President Bush addressed The Knesset during his trip to Jerusalem, and it was quite a speech. In expressing the United States' solidarity with Israel, he spoke specifically about the futility of negotiating with terrorists and the entities that support them such as Iran - those who have repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off of the map.

By doing so, the President has apparently unleashed the ire of the Left. Nancy Pelosi came out and condemned the entire speech as "beneath the dignity of the office". Barack Obama came out and stated that "this is a false charge", although no specific charge against him was made. The esteemed Joe Biden came out and made his own useful contribution to the discussion, as expressed in this Politico headline: Biden: Bush's comments were 'bullshit'.

Makes one wonder if any of them either saw or read the speech. You can watch the entire speech by clicking the video link on this page, and you read the text here. As for the comments that caused the Left heartache, here they are in all their glory. To provide context, paragraphs immediately before and after the 'offending' passages are included:

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you. (Applause.)

America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

The rapid and way over-the-top reaction of the Democrats, particularly Barack Obama, suggests something other than dismay at the President's words. It signifies a fear that the American public will recognize that "appeasement" is precisely what the Democrats, by supporting Obama and his rhetoric, are suggesting we do with our enemies.

An adviser to Obama's campaign has already had direct talks with the terrorist group Hamas - but was fired when the public found out. In July of 2007, the church that Obama attended for over 20 years published a manifesto by Hamas on its bulletin's "Pastor's Page" that promoted terrorism and denied the existence of Israel. When it came to the attention of the press earlier this year, Obama was forced to denounce it.  In an interview with the New York Times in November, Obama said that he would personally hold direct talks with Iran with no preconditions, something that he had also said in one of the Democratic debates, even though that country is engaged in a active proxy war with the United States and our allies in Iraq, Israel, and Lebanon:

Senator Barack Obama said he would “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran if elected president, and would offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek “regime change” if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues...

Making clear that he planned to talk to Iran without preconditions, Mr. Obama emphasized further that “changes in behavior” by Iran could possibly be rewarded with membership in the World Trade Organization, other economic benefits and security guarantees.

Realizing the political problems with his stances on these issues, the Obama campaign has been furiously backpedaling over the past few weeks. The candidate seems particularly anxious to dispel the idea that he favors personal talks with Iran with no preconditions. Perhaps he's finally realizing that the actions of Iran in promoting, funding, supplying, and directing terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas that are engaged in daily attacks against Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, and the United States turn the state of Iran into a defacto terrorist entity in of itself. Or perhaps it's political expediency.

Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

There's a problem with Obama's rewriting of history, however. Here's an excerpt from his campaign's own website:

Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

The reactions of Obama and the Democrats to President Bush's speech expressing solidarity with Israel would be humorous were they not so sad. Perhaps Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden would like to share with us any evidence that negotiations with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, or Hamas have resulted in either the cessation of illegal activities that have brought these entities worldwide condemnation or the cessation of hostile acts of aggression against ourselves or our allies by these groups and countries.

Or perhaps they are the ones who should "shut up".

If The GOP Wants To Govern Like Democrats, Why Have a Separate Party?

Republicans should be panicked over the fact that conservative Democrat Travis Childers just defeated Republican Greg Davis by a margin of 54%-46% in the race for a vacant Mississippi congressional seat. That seat is in a conservative district that had previously given President Bush a 25% margin of victory over John Kerry in 2004 - it never should have flipped Democrat. This is the third double-digit loss in a row for Republican candidates in conservative districts across the United States.

What we're watching is the culmination of the decade+ deterioration of the conservative Republican brand. Put simply, no-one, including base conservatives, trust the Republicans to govern effectively while following anything even faintly resembling a conservative platform.

That's unfortunate, since the only time that the Republicans really took the country by storm was in 1994, when they all ran on a set of firm, well established conservative values and issues. When the GOP strayed from that, falling back on the Democratic tradition of retaining power through excessive pork barrel spending and questionable ethical practices, they first lost seats - then lost their majorities. To regain what they have thrown away they must return to those conservative principles. If successful, they then must reject the compromising allure of power and promise to govern in the future as conservatives, not as the Democratic Party Lite.

The national GOP has fallen for the media lie that voters across America want a 'moderate', as opposed to a conservative, Republican Party. Unfortunately, that's also the philosophy behind the Presidential campaign of John McCain. McCain might very well become the next President, but it will be more because of the inadequacies of his opponent than any wellspring of support for his governing philosophy or ideology.

This trend is nothing new, nor is the Republicans' refusal to deal with it. A prime example that should have been a warning sign to Republicans everywhere is that of the 2006 Senate election in Rhode Island between the incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee was lauded nationwide in the media for his "brave" stances against almost everything the Republican Party did or stood for. Looking at the totality of his political positions, it was impossible to view him as anything other than a liberal who would be more at home in the Democratic Party. Even so, the national GOP helped him vanquish his only real ideological opponent, the conservative Republican Steve Laffey, in the primary. The argument was that Chafee's opposition to Bush would help him in a blue state such as Rhode Island. But when it came to the general election, even though Chafee was personally popular in the state, Rhode Island voters decided that they were more comfortable with a real Democrat as Senator rather than a Democrat masquerading as a Republican. 

Fast forward to today, and look at Senator McCain's just launched climate change tour. In a national poll conducted by Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg released earlier this month, only 4% of respondents replied that the environment as a whole was one of the most important issues in this election. More surprisingly, only 6% of Democrats thought so! So why is McCain so focused on climate change? Because it is one of the media's pet issues, and McCain is trying to get in the media's good graces again. By doing so, and prominently embracing issues that the Democrats own nationwide, McCain feels that he'll attract some swing votes.

That's not going to work. The media will never be in John McCain's corner during a Presidential election, no matter how hard he tries. They will be firmly in Obama's back pocket, and will be the enablers for Howard Dean's viscous attack machine against McCain. And the voters who view global warming as a major election issue?  They're so far left that they'll be repulsed away from voting for McCain by his other stances on issues such as the War in Iraq.

So what other good might come of John McCain's tack to the left? Will his road to 'moderation' help Republicans overall this fall? To answer that, I'll just relay something that Fox News' Carl Cameron mentioned last night on Brit Hume's Special Report during his report on McCain's global warming tour. Cameron quoted a McCain aide on the candidate's plan to distance himself from the GOP and President Bush by election day:

...by the time the November elections come around, it'll be hard to tell that they were even in the same party.

How that will serve to help other Republicans this fall escapes me, unless McCain's real plan is to remake the party in the image of himself, Chafee (who isn't even in the GOP any more), and Christine Todd Whitman. If he does that, the GOP will be in the minority for generations to come.

McCain will be all over the map this fall - conservative on some important issues like the war and judges, but liberal on other issues such as the global warming, immigration, and perhaps even taxes. The past few years has shown that such vacillation - such an inability to enunciate a clear set of conservative governing principles across the policy spectrum - might work with an individual candidate here and there, but represents disaster for the political party.

John McCain might win this crucially important Presidential election, since the alternative would be disastrous for the United States and the world. The war issue alone, and the ramifications worldwide if we should lose, should be enough to bring the conservative base out to vote for the Senator in an election that many might otherwise be tempted to skip. But the message so far from McCain to down-ticket Republicans this fall is clear: "Don't expect any help from me, unless you are prepared to repudiate much of your conservative beliefs".

That's not the way for the GOP to rebuild the party. That's not the way for the GOP to win.

New Gallup Poll: Dems Still Want Hillary to Hang In There!

With the avalanche of 'news' reports demanding that Hillary Clinton drop out of the race now "for the good of the Democratic Party", I'm surprised to see the following from this morning's latest Gallup Poll:

A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows that 55% of Democrats say both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should continue campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, while 35% say Clinton should drop out.

So, 65% of Democrats think that Hillary should continue campaigning or really don't care either way. Interesting...

Why All The Complaints About High Gas And Oil Prices?

While oil and gasoline prices continue to rise, the rhetoric and actions of Democrats in Congress seem destined to push those costs even higher, contrary to the Dems' promise that they used to get elected to majorities in 2006 that they had "a common-sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices".

Investor's Business Daily has a continuing series on "Breaking the Back of High Oil", and today's edition has a fascinating breakdown of some of the actions that the Democrats have taken over the last three decades or so to ensure that our country has no defense against the effects of rising oil prices. While doing so, they've made us all captives of OPEC and such tinpot dictatorships such as Venezuela.

Today's editorial in the series, Who Is Really Responsible For The High Prices You Pay For Gasoline?, points out that we have attempted to get Congressional approval for drilling in Alaska's ANWR region for the last 28 years. Remember that the next time a Democrat brings up the "fact" that it will take 10 years to get ANWR on line - if President Clinton hadn't vetoed ANWR drilling the time that it evaded blocking maneuvers by Democrats and got through a Republican controlled Congress in the mid-90s, we'd be in the second or third year of active production from that oil field. Any such domestic drilling would have produced substantial downward pressure on international oil prices set by the cartels - so in addition to having our own new source of oil, prices we pay internationally today would have been cheaper.

Other actions during the past few decades that the Democrats (and a few stray Republicans) have taken to ensure that we have high energy prices include:

For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.

More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out. However, it's somehow OK for China to drill there.

As a further indictment of our Congress, since the 1980s it has continually stopped all building of nuclear power plants while France, Germany and, yes, Japan, plus 12 other major nations, did build plants and now get 20% to 80% of their energy from their wise and safe nuclear plant investments.

From 1990 to 2000, U.S. crude oil demand rapidly accelerated by 7.41 quadrillion BTUs, according to Department of Energy data. And our rate of foreign oil dependency dramatically increased while our domestic oil production steadily declined.

Under the eight Clinton years alone, U.S. oil production declined 1,349,000 barrels per day, or 19%, while our foreign imports increased 3,574,000 barrels per day, or 45%.

The offshore drilling debacle is particularly goading. Cuba made a huge offshore discovery of oil in 2006, 50 miles or less off the coast of Florida. As it's in Cuban territory, that country has sold off blocks for development to Venezuela and China. Correctly assuming that the United States was best equipped to drill responsibly in that area (thus protecting Florida's coastline), Republicans in Congress introduced the "Western Hemisphere Energy Security Act of 2006", which would have allowed US companies to lease that land in Cuba's territorial waters. The bill was killed before hearings were even held on it.

With the enormous amount of information available to the public on Congress' actions (or inactions) on energy policy over the past 30 years, it should be easy to paint Democrats as the "owners" of high oil and gasoline prices. As for alternative energy sources other than nuclear that everyone seems to be pushing, there's no guarantee that any of those will 1) be a viable large-scale substitute of energy derived from fossil fuels, and 2) result in cheaper energy. And remember the law of unintended consequences. Ethanol was sold to the American public as a cleaner and cheaper alternative to gasoline. It is neither, and the demand for corn-based ethanol has had the added impact of increasing food costs worldwide.

As the IBD editorial states, "It's wake-up time for America. Maybe we should investigate the blame-throwing investigators in Congress."

Global Warming Speculators - A New Breed of Businessmen

There's a new breed of businessmen cashing in on the secular religion of global warming - and global warming's High Priest, Al Gore, is their leader. He's all over the public airwaves these days, blaming global warming for the disaster in Burma. Soon he will attempt to link this morning's 7.8 magnitude earthquake to global warming as well.

In doing so, he's just laying more groundwork for his investments in the new global warming cash cow - which he's inventing, just like the Internet. From today's Political Diary from the Wall Street Journal (sub.req.):

Even with the human tragedy of Cyclone Nargis still unfolding in Burma, environmentalists aren't wasting any time linking the disaster to global warming. Or at least one isn't: Al Gore. Citing the deadly Burmese storm and recent storms in China and Bangladesh, he declared on National Public Radio: "We're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

There's just one problem -- it's not clear there's any link between climate change and hurricane numbers or intensity. The number of big storms has been falling, not rising. As for intensity, researchers led by Christopher Landsea of the National Hurricane Center have found that earlier generations of hurricane-watchers using inferior satellite imagery incorrectly classified many storms as weaker than they actually were. After correcting for this mismeasurement, the "increase" in storm intensity since the 1970s nearly disappears.

But Mr. Gore is perhaps too busy these days to follow the science closely. In April, a London-based company he chairs began selling shares in its so-called Global Sustainability Fund to small investors in New Zealand, following a similar offer to investors in Australia (interestingly, out of sight of the U.S. press). He was also a conspicuously invoked presence when the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins this month announced a new $500 million "green growth" fund in partnership with Mr. Gore's London firm. Asked by the San Jose Mercury News if Mr. Gore had been helpful in raising money, co-manager John Denniston replied: "That's not been his primary responsibility."

Uh huh. Mr. Gore's primary responsibility, from the looks of it, is to spread alarm about global warming and create the political conditions (subsidies, mandates) without which Kleiner's "green" energy ventures are unlikely to flourish. Expect the payoff to come next year as a new Congress and President debate global warming policy.

Global warming is big, big money. It always has been - the first alarmists were merely scientists looking for grants to continue their studies. While doing so, they discovered that the more hysterical their warnings became, the more money flowed into them.

Now it's cool to be green, and to be working on solutions to the coming Apocalypse from global warming. That means huge amounts of money, from sources both public and private, going to people who should be referred to as "global warming speculators".

I can't wait until this one goes bust!

 

Must Read - John McCaslin's "Life's Lessons" Column

If you read any column today, read John McCaslin's over at Townhall.com: Life's Lessons

You will be better for it.