Do the Twister, Romm-Style
As the mind-numbing debate over Waxman-Markey grinds on, we should be thankful for the unintended entertainment provided by Joe Romm’s rants and contortionist logic.
Upset that some critics have accused him of “cheerleading” the WM bill, Romm is now flailing away, lashing out in typical, unseemly asides at all his usual bogeymen. More bizzarely, Romm is trying to convince his readers (and himself?) that he’s always been upfront about how foul-smelling the WM bill really is. Well, for those who care to follow it, here’s the paper trail:
May 12: “How I learned to stop worrying and love Waxman-Markey, part 2: In praise of domestic offsets.”
May 17: “…what it actually does is enact into law a sweeping clean energy revolution that puts the nation on a path to virtually eliminate global warming pollution from the entire economy in four decades.”
May 21: “House committee approves landmark (bipartisan!) clean energy and climate bill…”
June 1: “No, I’m not a cheerleader for this weak, cheerless bill.”
On a related note, it’s fascinating to watch Romm dig a hole for himself with comments like this, also from his recent tangential post:
To be clear, my perspective is that the chances of avoiding catastrophic climate change if Waxman-Markey dies is zero…
Now Romm has previously admitted that the odds are against this bill getting through the House and Senate. So what happens if the WM bill does die?
Is that it? Game over? Romm closes shop, and we wait for doomsday? There’s really no getting around zero. But if this bill goes down, you can bet that Romm will climb out of that hole he built and pretend like nobody saw it happen.
Romm lost almost all of the respect I had for him when he started pretending that it wasn’t a problem for him to display nuclear power ads on his web site.
Here’s what he said in a comment (that he added to my own comment) this March –
“Certainly I hope you are not suggesting that every organization that runs an ad is promoting what the ad is promoting. indeed, the right way to look at it is, nuclear power industry is promoting my blog!”
( http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/04/q-why-is-climate-progress-running-ads-including-one-from-the-nuclear-energy-institute/ )
That’s a downright silly stance, I think.
There also are major problems with the rest of what he said.
(Looking back at what I typed out in comments there at the time, I see that my objections to his stance had only just begun to set in at the time. )
(Just to be clear about this –
The above quotation is only part of what he has said about that nuclear advertising. You’ll see more from him if you follow that web link.)
[…] on the other hand, has given no quarter. Yeah, he’s tried walking back his cheerless cheerleading, but if you raised any objections back then, you know Romm considers you […]