President Bush's Spilt Milk Theory

Thanks, Mr. President, thanks for today's near-admission you’d been wrong … and I stress the word “near.”

But this is George W. Bush. Wrong is wrong and he isn’t wrong. He’s the decider. Deciders can’t be wrong – even when he’s smacked down by the highest court in the land and even when that highest court in the land tilts in his direction. Nope, no wrong here.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Bush administration was wrong in not enforcing the key provisions of the Clean Air Act. It was the first true global warming argument brought to the high court and, boy, did it pack a punch.

Bush got dunked by the court and now he’s saying, well, nothing new really. He admits the court’s ruling is “the new law of the land” but doesn’t quite bring himself to admitting the administration had it wrong all along.

He argued that "anything that happens cannot hurt economic growth. I care about the working people of the country but also because in order to solve the greenhouse gas issue over a longer period of time, it's going to require new technologies, which tend to be expensive."

And he continued to push the theory that nothing the US does matters unless China and India get in line on global warming.

Bush said that "whatever we do, it must be in concert with what happens internationally. Because we could pass any number of measures that are now being discussed in the Congress, but unless there is an accord with China, China will produce greenhouse gases that will offset anything we do in a brief period of time.”

To me, this sounds like an argument my 3-year-old might make when he and his buddies are spilling their milk all over the floor. He may look at me and say he won’t stop spilling his milk until the other kids do too. Sure, we have to stop the other kids from spilling milk but, for God’s sake, stop spilling yours first - not just because it'll mean there is less milk on the floor but maybe, just maybe, the other 3-year-olds will stop spilling their milk too.

And how does that jive with the Bush administration's immigration policy, by the way? This is the team that wants to put a fence on the border to cut off the flow of immigrants. Well if it makes sense to turn off the spigot there to stop the flood, why wouldn’t it here, too?

But that brings us back to the 3-year-olds and milk. You can't try to inject logic into a completely illogical mind.