Energy choices
“You might think now that Barack Obama has staffed his economic and security teams, the hard choices are over. But he has one more doozy of a decision to make. And the worry is that his picks for that final, crucial team - those overseeing energy and environmental policy - will undo any smart moves the president-elect has made so far,” Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley A. Strassel writes.
“It isn’t yet clear Team Obama understands that it doesn’t have the luxury of making a mistake here. Energy is the engine of, and inextricably linked to, the American economy. Environmental policies and regulations that punish energy markets will only deliver a further economic hit,” the columnist said.
“In the process, this will damage Mr. Obama’s own goals. He has picked an economic team that has already successfully discouraged him from proceeding immediately with any tax hikes. Good. But an ill-crafted cap-and-trade program that dramatically escalates energy costs is the same as a giant tax hike.
“Mr. Obama is promising to save or create 2.5 million jobs. Fabulous. But drowning industries in exorbitant energy prices will only encourage further overseas flight. If the president-elect thinks Detroit is a problem, just wait for the impact an upward march in electricity prices would have on, say, the manufacturing South.”
Jeb’s future
“When Mel Martinez reached Jeb Bush last week to tell him that Martinez would shortly announce his decision not to run for re-election to the Senate, Bush expressed no particular interest in succeeding him in Washington,” Fred Barnes writes in the Weekly Standard.
“It was early in the morning, and Bush was working out on an exercise machine. Since Martinez’s term won’t be over until 2010, Bush had plenty of time - months, not weeks - before he’d have to worry about a campaign. But a day later, he told reporters he’s considering running,” Mr. Barnes noted.
“Bush was wise to disclose his interest. The quick announcement means that no other Republican can gain support for a 2010 Senate race in Florida. Everyone will be waiting for Bush’s decision, and the assumption is he’s far more likely than not to run. If he does, he will be a strong favorite to win the seat.
“Bush’s sudden emergence, after two years out of politics, has national significance beyond the possibility he might run for president some day. Republicans, divided and depressed after crushing election losses in 2006 and this year, need unifying leaders with broad appeal. Bush, in his eight years as Florida governor, was popular with all branches of the party. Merely as a candidate, he’d be a focus of Republican attention.
“Of course, that’s partly because of the question that never goes away: Will Jeb run for president some day? When I interviewed him two years ago in his waning days as Florida governor, I got the impression he wouldn’t. ’I’m not a big Washington guy,’ he told me. And when Republican governors met last month in Miami, Bush’s hometown, and he didn’t bother to drop by, I took that as another sign of his indifference to running for president, ever.
“But a Senate bid would signal he at least wants to keep the presidential option open.”
Image change
“Six weeks before taking office, President-elect Barack Obama can already boast one striking accomplishment: persuading partisan, ideological adversaries to see him in a less partisan, less ideological light,” John Harwood writes in the New York Times.
“The reappraisal runs deeper than Mr. Obama’s photo-op pleasantries with Sen. John McCain. Derided during the campaign as a purveyor of ’socialism’ who was guilty of ’palling around with terrorists,’ he has since won praise from conservatives for retaining Robert Gates as defense secretary, for naming Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser and for selecting the moderate Timothy F. Geithner, who helped draw up the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout plan, as his Treasury secretary.
“Karl Rove has called Mr. Obama’s economic team ’reassuring,’ and other Bush alumni agree. ’Obama is doing something marvelously right,’ Michael Gerson, President Bush’s one-time senior speechwriter, wrote in The Washington Post. ’He is disappointing the ideologues.’
“More remarkably, Mr. Obama has reaped those plaudits without seeming to abandon his commitment to the same policies that conservatives routinely attacked during the campaign - his pledge to expand health care coverage, to withdraw troops from Iraq and to increase government spending on infrastructure and alternative energy projects. …
“All this raises the question: can Mr. Obama indeed be forging the new style of politics he invoked so often during the election - one that transcends the partisan divisions that have marked recent administrations?”
Cool on warming
“The mail brings an invitation to register for the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, which convenes on March 8 in New York City,” Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes.
“Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank, the conference will host an international lineup of climate scientists and researchers who will focus on four broad areas: climatology, paleoclimatology, the impact of climate change, and climate-change politics and economics,” Mr. Jacoby said.
“But if last year’s gathering is any indication, the conference is likely to cover the climate-change waterfront. There were dozens of presentations in 2008, including: ’Strengths and Weaknesses of Climate Models,’ ’Ecological and Demographic Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears’ and ’The Overstated Role of Carbon Dioxide on Climate Change.’
“Just another forum, then, sounding the usual alarums on the looming threat from global warming?
“Actually, no. The scientists and scholars Heartland is assembling are not members of the gloom-and-doom chorus. They dispute the frantic claims that global warming is an onrushing catastrophe; many are skeptical of the notion that human activity has a significant effect on the planet’s climate, or that such an effect can be reliably measured or predicted. Some point out that global temperatures peaked in 1998 and have been falling since then. Indeed, several argue that a period of global cooling is on the way. …
“On this they would all agree: Science is not settled by majority vote, especially in a field as young as climate science.”
Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or e-mail Greg Pierce.
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