Has Bush Handed the Dems the White House?

George Bush seems intent on torpedoing the chances of a Republican succession.

Iraq may still be the dominant issue for Americans (again bad news for the Repugs) but global warming is moving up fast. A recent Zobgy poll found over 70% of respondents said they were either already taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint or were willing to make that sacrifice. Only 15% said action wasn't necessary.

That means that a lot of Bush's base isn't with him on the global warming front. It also suggests that a lot of the Christian Right is coming around on the GHG issue.

For all that, Bush is digging in his heels on one of the essential keys to fighting global warming, carbon caps. According to the Associated Press, the White House is singing the same old song:

"Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" - including job losses - that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

"'There is a concern within this administration, which I support, that the imposition of a carbon cap in this country would - may - lead to the transfer of jobs and industry abroad (to nations) that do not have such a carbon cap,' Bodman said. 'You would then have the U.S. economy damaged, on the one hand, and the same emissions, potentially even worse emissions.'

"President Bush used the same economic reasoning when he rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, an international treaty requiring 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by 5 percent on average below 1990 levels by 2012. The White House has said the treaty would have cost 5 million U.S. jobs.

"'Even if we were successful in accomplishing some kind of debate and discussion about what caps might be here in the United States, we are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world. And so it's really got to be a global solution,' Bodman said."

Since when does being the planet's top GHG emitter make America a bit player in the global warming problem? With 5% of the world's population the US accounts for 25% of the world's GHG emissions. The Energy Secretary is in a state of complete denial, a contagious disorder around the White House.

Bush has just handed the congressional Dems a clear issue on which to rally voters. Let the White House veto remedial legislation, if it dares.

Right now the Democratic presidential nomination candidates are stymied on Iraq, largely because there are no good answers. The global warming debate, however, offers them a much cleaner issue and one on which their president and the American people have parted company.

Now is the time for the Dems to take control of the issue so that they define the agenda and leave Bush trailing behind having to fend them off with his veto. They cannot afford to allow the White House to take control of this one.