Shock! Bush articulates his own policy rather than The Guardian's

The Guardian/Observer today climbs back on its hobby horse to enage in two of its favorite pastimes...Bush-bashing and global climate scare-mongering. In a whole slew of articles - for instance here, here, and here - it hypes global warming and demonizes the Bush administration both for what it does and what it doesn't do. The big news (as opposed to the seemingly endless harping on the same global warming litany that we've already heard a million times) is that documents "obtained by The Observer" detail the "extraordinary" efforts being made by the Bush administration to "scupper" Britain's attempts to tackle global warming. What are these extraordinary efforts revealed in these documents? Well, it turns out that, in preparing papers to submit to the upcoming G8 summit, the Bush administration edited them so that - prepare yourself to be shocked- they reflected the Bush administration's thinking and policies.

The "leaked" papers, which were "part of the Bush administration's submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month", show that, as The Guardian puts it, Washington:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Removed, deleted, and expunged. The nerve, the unmitigated gall, the sheer effrontery of those scoundrels in Washington, editing their own papers to say what they want them to say.

Forgive me if I fail to be impressed by The Guardian's scoop. I hadn't realized that Washington's submissions to the G8 were required to reflect The Guardian's sky-is-falling rhetoric on global warming rather than its own poistion.

We also find out that:

Washington also appears to be unsympathetic towards the plight of Africa, the other priority singled out by Blair for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles.

Now that did surprise me, given the recent agreements on debt relief as well as Bush's past actions on AIDS in Africa. So how is it that Washington's lack of sympathy has manifested itself?

The documents reveal how the Bush administration has pulled out of financial pledges to fund a network of regional climate centres throughout Africa which were designed to monitor the unfolding impact of global warming.

I see. Forget about funding for food and health care. What's really important to Africa is ensuring employment for the West's growing supply of scientists feeding at the public trough.

Glad to see The Guardian has its priorities.