06-01-07 by dugan
President Bush’s big media splash for his greenhouse gas speech Thursday is getting—belatedly—the thrashing it deserves. Check out columnist Dan Froomkin in Washingtonpost.com today:
[Bush] put forth a new proposal on climate change that is most newsworthy for its attempt to muddy the debate about the issue and derail European and U.N. plans for strict caps on emissions. Bush’s proposal calls for a new round of international meetings that would nearly outlast his presidency. The purpose of the meetings would not be to set caps on emissions, but to establish what the White House — uncorking a bold new euphemism — calls "aspirational goals."
Exxon, Chevron and their pals can only wish they’d invented the phrase.
There’s more, lots more, in the Froomkin column. He hands the major newspapers–his own Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, a lashing for their glowing headlines about the Bush statement. Other highlights: British columnist Robert Cornwell’s line-by-line deconstruction of the Bush speech, and the following exchange from the White House news conference in which a spokesman coins “aspirational goals” to avoid saying that the whole Bush plan would be voluntary for industry. Froomkin quotes from a print column by the Post’s Dana Milbank:
“Will the new framework consist of binding commitments or voluntary commitments?” asked CBS News’s Jim Axelrod.
"In this instance, you have a long-term, aspirational goal,” [presidential environment adviser Jim] Connaughton answered.
[Milbank inserts this aside] Aspirational goal? Like having the body you want without diet or exercise? Or getting rich without working?
“I’m confused,” Axelrod said. “Does that mean there will be targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and that everybody will be making binding commitments?”
“The commitment at the international level will be to a long-term, aspirational goal,” the Bush aide repeated.
Axelrod had his answer. “Voluntary,” he concluded.
“Well,” said Connaughton, “I want to be careful about the word ‘voluntary.’”