OH, I'M JUST SO ASHAMED, AREN'T YOU? – AT 10:47 A.M. ET:  The Politico informs us of the dismay expressed by an American diplomat over things his embarrassing countrymen have said:

GLOBAL HEAD SCRATCHING – Congress’s growing ranks of climate skeptics have the rest of the world a little confused, the top U.S. climate negotiator told reporters yesterday in Crystal City. “People from around the world look at some of the things that some of the people running for the Senate and House have said, some of the positions that are taken,” and “there is puzzlement,” Todd Stern said at the end of a two-day meeting on climate for the world’s largest economic powers.

COMMENT:  Well whoop-dee-do.  I'm so distressed that there's puzzlement.  Maybe some of the "puzzled" should look beyond their left-wing, politically correct newspapers and realize there's a real debate going on, and that serious scientists are expressing skepticism over "global warming" – excuse me, I meant to use the more stylish "climate change."  We want to be fashionable here.

The issue is not whether there is climate change.  The climate is always changing a bit.  The issue is whether we should commit trillions of dollars to strategies based on unproved assumptions, projections and doomsday scenarios.  That is a discussion we must have, with or without the permission of our diplomats or their overseas constituencies.

Stern's patronizing observation reminds me of the story, which we've told here before, of our great former secretary of state, George Shultz.  When a new ambassador was appointed, Shultz would call him or her in, take the appointee to a map, and ask, "What is your country?"  The appointee would inevitably point to some nation overseas.  "No," Shultz would reply, pointing to the United States, "that is your country." 

We will have our debate here.

November 20, 2010