Anyone else know what can be done???

-- chiefpayne

The only thing we can do at this point is wait. Lieberman knows he's toast just as soon as he's not needed by the Dems, so he's desperately trying to set up something with the Repubs by trying to help them hang on to the presidency. He doesn't realize that he's only a useful tool to them as long as he's still perceived as a Democrat by people who aren't paying attention.

Next year he'll be booted to the curb by both parties, and even if he runs again in 2012, he'll lose.

(There are some folks worried that McCain will pick Lieberman for VP. First, it'll never happen because the Republican Party would go ballistic. Secondly, even if it did happen, well, hell, just picture the two of them on stage together. As I've put it before, they'd be the "You kids get the hell off my yard" dream ticket.)

Hard economic times are going to affect the calculus of global warming politics. The worse the economy performs, the more difficult it will be to pass any kind of legislation that threatens to raise energy costs. And while How the World Works has a lot of sympathy for those who argue that Republican scare-mongering about the economic impact of restricting emissions is grossly exaggerated, still, there's no question but that the entire point of cap-and-trade legislation is to make certain kinds of industrial activity more expensive. Ideally, Congress could compensate for the negative effect of such measures by bolstering safety nets and redistributing wealth, but pushing through such measures will require a different occupant of the White House and significant increases in Democratic Congressional majorities.

While this is -- currently -- part of the political calculus, it's not quite the reality of the situation. Aggressively addressing the overlapping issues of energy and climate change will unquestionably cost us all more in some ways. Done right, it will cost us all much less than not addressing these issues.

Um. Since when is it a conflict of interest to invest in something you think is a good idea? Sure, his campaign is -- hopefully -- having an effect on the potential markets for Camco International Ltd. But he's not part of our government, so there's no conflict of interest involved.

(Now if he was one of the many, many Congresscritters taking contributions from oil company lobbyists, that's seems like a conflict of interest ... though a perfectly legal one, of course.)

Oh, and I don't take the proof from Al Gore. I take the proof from the climatologists that he gets it from.

I'm a little surprised that no-one else pointed out the gods-awfulness of that sentence.

" ... to the extent that the comments of members of our staff are misinterpreted, they shouldn’t be read into as anything otherwise."

As you say, it's possible that whatever was snipped off of the beginning gave coherence to the rest. But I doubt it.

WTF does it even mean?

"Since when is it a conflict of interest to invest in something you think is a good idea?"

Kind of like war-profiteering, huh? Invest heavily in companies that profit from war, and then cram war down the throats of the American people, even lie to them if you have to.

Works the same way.

Except that Gore's not part of the government, nor does he work in the climate-change equivalent of the Pentagon, nor are carbon-trading companies owned by the same people as own the mass media, nor is climate change based on lies, nor are hundreds of thousands of people killed by carbon caps.

But other than those minor quibbles, yeah, it works the same way.

And a defibrillator works the same way as an electric chair.

1) It's absolutely okay with me to profit off of dealing with a crisis. That's the whole point of carbon caps -- to harness the market to do the right thing.

2) & 3) I hear more in the media about climate-change denial than the issue deserves. It has benefited far past any reasonable measure from the false and simplistic "both sides of the story" media approach that presents a controversy as if "both" sides are equally worth hearing.

4) There are a number of factors contributing to food prices, some of them no doubt because of the early stages of climate change, as well as the end of cheap oil. And such effects are likely to get worse.

I will DROP all this, if you can just SHOW ME SOME PROOF.

I've done my research, "kid". Why should I do yours? What proof could I present that you wouldn't dismiss just as easily as you dismiss the climatologists' proof as presented by themselves, Gore, and others?

The "Bush-doctrine" which defined his post-9/11 presidency will be considered a logically flawed doctrine since it holds nations harboring terrorists as responsible as the terrorists themselves. Many people will ask, what about Pakistan or Saudi Arabia?

Heck, what about the US?

No.

Next question.

toobin, a usually good guy, called it narcissism. i've heard that alot now, that she talked about her, her, her. nobody ever says that about male candidates who are always talking about their candidacies.

Are you kidding? That's been used so often against Dem candidates -- female and male -- that it's a cliche.

Heck, I'm pretty sure I've heard it used against Obama by Hillary supporters. (Maybe even here on Salon, though I don't remember for sure.)

I ain't saying Hillary wasn't way-too-often treated differently because she's a woman. Of course she was. But the "narcissism" thing isn't an example of that.

You gotta be a little more subtle than that to be believable.

(Or less subtle to be funny.)