Today’s Wall Street Journal printed a letter from Senators Snowe and Rockefeller to ExxonMobil (here) along with an editorial about the letter (here).

In the letter, Snowe and Rockefeller ask ExxonMobil to stop perpetuating the uncertainty agenda (which they refer to as the “obfuscation agenda”). The letter is similar in many respects to a letter sent to Exxon by the British Royal Society.

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The editorial is a broadside against the Senators. How dare they write that letter! You can feel the anger in it — I’m quite certain the first draft was written in all caps.

Here are a few thoughts:

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  • While I agree with much of what Snowe and Rockefeller say, I also agree with the WSJ that this is in some ways troubling. As they point out, if the Bush Administration had sent the same letter to some organization, people would be howling about censorship.
  • What’s the deal with the WSJ editorial page? The paper’s news section is quite responsible and accurate in their depiction of global warming. But when you turn to the editorial page, it’s through the looking glass into the land of denial. They apparently don’t know it’s not just a river in Egypt.
  • The uncertainty agenda is alive and kicking. Its appearance here, after a sighting at the Supreme Court, shows that suggestions of its demise are premature.

Stay tuned for some more thoughts.