McCain, an eentsy bit better than Duhbya

The Washington Post heads its story about John McCain's alleged environmentalism in two ways:

• Front page, teasing the link: "A Mixed Environmental Record"
  
• On the story page: "Environmental Stances Are Balancing Act For McCain"

Yah, "mixed" if you mean mixed up; "balanced" if the fulcrum is way over to the anti-environmental end.

I'd call the story "McCain slightly greener than Bush".

The story claims that McCain would cap greenhouse emissions, but it fails to note that his idea of a cap is voluntary, i.e. useless.

This is not the first story where Juliet Eilperin left her perspective at the door, instead providing the uninformative faux balance that the media is so fond of. On the other hand, at least it's a story about an important policy issue.

Update: McCain comes out for cap and trade.

Too polite by half

Newtie Gingrich has written a book, and in it - get this - he's claiming to be an ardent environmentalist. What's next? A syndicated column giving marital advice?

Juliet Eilperin gives Newt's book a "balanced" review, rather than a fair one or an objective one. Maybe derisive laughter wouldn't translate well into print in the Washington Post. But I suspect journamalism at work. Bending over backward to conservatives is so expected by the handmaidens to power. Here, some bon mots, starting with the headline (not Eilperin's responsibility):

Green Republicans
Newt Gingrich gets tough on the U.S. role in the environment

There's this cherry-picked statistic:

[T]hey question the wisdom of imposing a mandatory, nationwide cap on carbon emissions on the grounds that Europe's carbon dioxide emissions rose faster than America's between 2000 and 2004.

Here's a graph that can put that captious crap into context. Surely even the WaPo has access to Google so that they could find a source not printed by the competition.

The most gaping "balance" comes at the end:

Gingrich and Maple contend that the private sector, not government, holds the answers to the globe's biggest problems.

This is the most patent bullshit, but Eilperin's comment is the vacuous:

The question is whether people in places such as Bangladesh can afford to wait and see if they're right.

If the private sector could have solved environmental problems, why haven't we seen any progress so far? The private sector is built to exploit externalities. It's like trying to solve peonage with Ebenezer Scrooge.

Eilperin does object to the specious equation of Duhbya's record with Bill Clinton's. Newt and his coauthor "compare the environmental records of Bush and ... Clinton in a way that strains credulity". This is a half-measure but welcome nonetheless. Newt the environmentalist is the fundamental strain on credulity.

Still, it would bode much better for our future if people with large platforms in our national conversation could recognize bullshit and call it what it is, even in less scatological terms.