Funny Thing About Global Warming...

Those who worry about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other wonky Al Gore stuff should lighten up. President Bush is on the case. He held a Rose Garden press conference this week and reassured us, “I’m pleased to say that we remain on track to meet this goal."

For the scientifically challenged, Gail Collins explains it all today in the New York Times:

"Suppose that two years after taking office, George W. Bush discovered that because of the stress of his job, he had gained 40 pounds and was tipping the scales at 220.

"The real-world Bush would immediately barricade himself in the White House gym, refusing all human contact or nourishment until the issue was resolved. But imagine that he regarded getting fat as seriously as he regards melting glaciers, rising oceans and drought and starvation around the planet. In that case, he would set a serious, management-type goal--of, say, an 18 percent reduction in the rate at which he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next decade.

"Cut to the Rose Garden in 2008 where partial victory is declared.'Over the past seven years, my administration has taken a rational, balanced approach to these serious challenges,' the 332-pound chief executive announces. He delivers this good news sitting down.

"2012: Bush hits his final goal and 400 pounds at approximately the same time."

Of course, Bush won't be in office then, but it’s the principle that counts, so we can start breathing easier.

Bloomberg's Kibitzer Candidacy

After teasing us for a year, Mike Bloomberg is putting his billion dollars back in his wallet and leaving a few platitudes on the plate instead.

In a New York Times OpEd titled "I'm Not Running for President, but...," New York's Mayor delivers a ringing concession speech for a presidential campaign that never started.

As he leaves the arena he didn't enter, Bloomberg chides the future nominees for being "afraid to level" with voters about global trade, global warming, immigration, improving schools and gun control.

"More of the same won’t do, on the economy or any other issue," he says. "We need innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership. That’s not just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream."

But he stands ready, Bloomberg tells us, to help McCain and Obama or Clinton, "to push them forward, by using the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate."

In the event the Mayor has forgotten his ethnic roots, what he is proposing to be is a kibitzer, defined as "someone who looks on and offers unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others."

But not entirely, Bloomberg warns us: "If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach--and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy--I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House."

Does he mean Ralph Nader?

Nobel War Prize for Cheney

Rumors that the former Vice-President may get a Nobel Peace Prize prompt the thought that, in all fairness, his successor should be awarded the Nobel War Prize.

As much as Gore has fought to avert global warming, Dick Cheney has done to fight everybody. Just as his predecessor has had to deal with critics who question his judgment, so has Cheney been forced to counter skeptics who doubt his sanity over a war against Iran, some of them reportedly members of the Bush cabinet such as the Secretaries of State and Defense.

It would set a poor example to the rest of the world if our former #2 man was honored for being a wimp, while the incumbent is left to snarl unseen and unappreciated.

Fair is fair.

Schwarzenegger on Boffo Ballot Box Office

Gov. Arnold, who knows about these things, is advising his party on how to get the grosses up next year. He told a Republican convention this weekend that they are "dying at the box office" and “not filling the seats” because they have "lost the middle.”

“I have been a Republican since Nixon,” Schwarzenegger said. “I have been a Republican in spite of years of debates with Maria, the entire Shriver clan and all the Kennedys up at Hyannis Port. Believe me, it would have been far easier to abandon my Republican identity years ago.”

The majority of Republicans want health care reform and action to reduce global warming, he pointed out, suggesting their leaders follow them.

“I am of the Reagan view that we should not go off the cliff with flags flying,” Schwarzenegger said, quoting his fellow actor-governor who became President: "We cannot become a narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments...This kind of party soon disappears in a blaze of glorious defeat."

The Governor went even further back for a new role model for the party, “President Eisenhower, the moderate military man who understood the need for logistics and infrastructure and created the Interstate Highway System--the largest public works project in American history. The majority of Republicans understand the need for investment.”

Schwarzenegger named no names, but another fellow actor, Fred Thompson, does not sound like good casting for the role he described. He has spoken warmly of Rudy Giuliani and, if all else fails, there is another New York Mayor he likes, Mike Bloomberg, who may run as an Independent.

McCain: Dead Man Walking

The party’s penchant for capital punishment of any candidate guilty of right-wing heresy has put John McCain on Republican Death Row, short of cash for appeals and dropping in the polls like the victim of a hangman’s noose.

McCain’s candor about campaign reform, global warming and immigration seem to have sealed his fate with the GOP faithful, who not only continue to flirt with Giuliani but are sniffing the after-shave appeal of Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.

What amounts to McCain’s political obituary is in the Washington Post today under the byline of Bush’s former speech writer, Michael Gerson, who credits him with
“a kind of nobility that seems unique in the current presidential race.”

And, Gerson might have added, unseen in American politics since his former bosses stole the White House in 2000.