I suppose that all heads of state have to make their own decisions about how to spend their international political capital. That's especially true when they have been anointed by God. But it's especially sad when they are upstaged by a guy named Arnold who had to learn how to stop spitting on his chin during his acting career.
It looks to me like Il Doofus (that's an old one, and not TM'ed. But I do like yours better, Strannix.) decided that he doesn't have to worry about anything the pedestrian world community is concerned about.
He's not even going to show for the Monday U.N. meeting in Montreal about global warming, or for any other environmental issue raised there. He's got his own little Beltway summit planned for later in the week.
I can understand what the Bush "tactic" is meant to be. For one thing, none of this is popular among the crowd he moves in. They can't make any serious money this way, like they can drilling for oil in Alaska. Basically, he disregarded the whole conventional Kyoto thing, perhaps at the risk of the planet's future.
This is what the U.S. presidency has come to. It is profoundly sad that the governor of "Kal-ee-fornia," a guy who qualified himself for the job as a champion bodybuilder, popular action-movie star, and Kennedy in-law -- and had to struggle to quell the sidespit on his chin as a Hollywood thespian -- is upstaging Il Doofus in Montreal today. And yet, few seem to notice.
And then, there's Al Gore. He seems to have almost transcended those mundane aspirations for the presidency, as if it were virtually a role for lesser beings. Since Al was swindled out of the presidency by a partisan Supreme Court, the world as a whole has suffered. But he, individually, hasn't. Globally, he seems to be taken all the more seriously now.
Anyway, on to the obligatory excerpt from the Reuters report:
Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
He contends the accord unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting developing countries like China and India and that it will cost U.S. jobs.
Developing countries have said it is unfair to ask them to curb their emissions as their economies grow while industrialized nations have been polluting for decades.
Bush does plan to speak at a two-day Washington meeting at the State Department on Thursday and Friday, a gathering of "major economies" -- the world's biggest global warming contributors -- on energy security and climate change.
The dude who is spitting on his chin seems the more intelligent of the two.
Crossposted at Manifesto Joe.
