Approaching a Global Warming Agenda Stop Sign, Obama Decides to Floor It Print
By Timothy H. Lee
Thursday, January 28 2010
Presented with this bright red stop sign [the message sent by voters in Massachusetts], how did Obama react just one week later in his State of the Union speech? Instead of slowing to a more reasonable speed, he’s flooring the accelerator.

Any toddler who touches a hot stovetop quickly internalizes the necessary lesson and becomes unlikely to repeat the mistake anytime soon. 

Apparently, Barack Obama isn’t quite that bright. 

Just one week ago, Obama received a proverbial stovetop scalding in the form of Republican Scott Brown’s upset Senate victory in deep-blue Massachusetts.  The message was unequivocal, with even that state’s liberal-leaning electorate rejecting Obama’s agenda. 

As vividly and objectively demonstrated by exit polls conducted by the independent polling firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, the leading motivation in Massachusetts voters’ decisions was “vote in opposition of Obama’s policies and direction he’s taking the country.”  Very simply, Massachusetts voters sent a strong message in opposition to Obama’s policies.  And if that was true of Massachusetts voters, it’s merely a preview of the volcanic rebuke that may await him this November. 

Presented with this bright red stop sign, then, how did Obama react just one week later in his State of the Union speech? 

Instead of slowing to a more reasonable speed, he’s flooring the accelerator. 

Perhaps the best illustration of this bizarre and self-destructive reaction was Obama’s vow to move full-speed ahead on his discredited global warming agenda. 

Last year, Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives passed – by the slimmest of margins – the holy grail for global warming troglodytes, carbon cap-and-tax legislation.  This scheme would for the first time in American history tax everyday carbon, which is a natural byproduct of everything from manufacturing products to driving delivery trucks to air conditioning our hospitals. 

That cap-and-tax bill would cripple already-burdened businesses with all new taxes, incentivize employers to ship American production jobs to cheaper overseas locations and even regulate what household items we can choose.  American cap-and-tax legislation is a European bureaucrat’s dream, and naturally popular among the Nobel Peace Prize committee.  It’s also an enticing prospect for nations such as China that would be on the receiving end of outsourced American jobs. 

But it’s poison for American jobs and the economy, and voters know it even if Obama curiously does not. 

Just this week, the left-leaning Pew Research Center conducted an opinion poll to ask Americans what they consider most important for Obama and Congress to address.  Researchers presented twenty-one possible issues:  the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education, Medicare, deficit reduction, healthcare, helping the poor, military, energy, health insurance, crime, moral decline, financial regulation, environment, tax cuts, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy and global warming. 

Respondents understandably rated the economy most critical, with 83% labeling it a “top issue.”  Jobs came in a close second, at 81%.  Energy policy placed in the middle slot, with 49% rating it a top issue. 

And where did “global warming” place in American voters’ opinion?  (Pew apparently didn’t get the liberal memo that they’re supposed to re-label it “climate change” since temperatures have declined since 1998 despite massive industrial growth in China, India and America during that period.) 

Dead last.  Twenty-first out of twenty-one options, with only 28% labeling it a “top issue.” 

The Pew research summary also noted that in addition to placing last in terms of public priority, the number of people who consider it important continues to decline: 

Dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom of the public’s list of priorities; just 28% consider this a top priority, the lowest measure for any issue tested in the survey.  Since 2007, when the item was first included on the priorities list, dealing with global warming has consistently ranked at or near the bottom.  Even so, the percentage that now says addressing global warming should be a top priority has fallen 10 points from 2007, when 38% considered it a top priority. 

That matters little to Obama, who recklessly pressed forward on the discredited global warming agenda, saying we must pass “a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”  He continued, “I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year.  And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.” 

So never mind that temperatures have declined over the past decade despite false warnings from Al Gore and his minions.  Never mind the continuing “Climategate” scandal in which global warming alarmists’ emails exposed them to be doctoring climate data, ostracizing scientists who dared debunk global warming hysteria and maligning scientific journals who presented contrary evidence.  Never mind the ensuing avalanche of debunked global warming claims.  Never mind that global warming places dead last in terms of voters’ priorities.  And never mind the damage that carbon cap-and-tax will inflict upon America’s already-weakened economy. 

None of that seems to matter to Obama. 

For some bizarre reason, he is under the delusion that the best thing to do is floor it. 

Come November, he may suddenly realize he foolishly drove his administration over the electoral cliff.