Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
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A subtle presidential bid?
Al Gore -- who's giving a major climate-policy speech today (more later) -- is writing another book, to be released in May: The Assault on Reason.Two things are notable about this:
- It's a blessing that somebody other than low-level pundits is finally going to publicly acknowledge the increasing air of emotivism, unreality, and illogic that characterizes our national political conversation.
- As Ezra notes, this is extremely well timed to keep Gore in the public eye, just in case, you know, he decides to ... youknowwhat.
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What to expect.
So, rumor's in the air about a new Bush climate policy. As Bart says, this is no doubt an authorized leak and, like everything the Bush administration does, done with politics in mind.I imagine Rove sees the Gore cloud gathering on the horizon and wants to blow it away with some hot air before it gets too big.
How? By stealing Gore's signature issue. It's exactly what Turdblossom did in the 2000 election: Bush's promise to regulate CO2 was nothing but a successful bid to take the issue off the table, to dilute media and voter attention (same with "compassionate conservatism"). It immunized Bush.
Now Rove is trying to immunize the party, by changing its stance on global warming from "No!" to "blah blah blah." Voters understand No, and on an issue like this they'll come to see it as obstructionist. But they don't really follow the blah blah blah. They'll get the impression that both parties are addressing the issue; then it's six of one half dozen the other.
Will it work? Let's just say the last six years have encouraged me never to underestimate the charlatans or overestimate the voting public.
Now, let's turn to prediction. If it's true that Bush will announce a big climate plan, here's what I expect will be in it, from most to least likely:
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