Bush on Merkel: Chummy Bud, or Budding Challenge?

The horror isn't that we're wrong, but that we're so unwilling to try and be right. This isn't about specific taxes or some looming Euro-treaty that will destroy American Freedom: We just had to agree with Europe that all nations, everywhere, should work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that we should develop cleaner, more efficient fuel. And - on behalf of you and me and Americans everywhere - Bush proudly stood his ground and did what he wanted regardless of what we want.

The scoop:

The NYTimes, June 7, 2007, "At Group of 8 Meeting, Bush Rebuffs Germany on Cutting Emissions," By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, additional reporting contributed by Mark Landler:

ROSTOCK, Germany, June 6 — As leaders of wealthy nations converged Wednesday on a Baltic Sea resort for their annual meeting, the White House effectively derailed a climate change initiative backed by one of President Bush’s strongest European allies, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

The White House said it would hold firm against concrete long-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a major priority for Mrs. Merkel, the host of the Group of 8 meeting.

...

After lunch with Mr. Bush, Mrs. Merkel seemed to concede — without explicitly saying so — that her plan was off the table.

“There are a few areas here and there we will continue to work on,” she said, standing side by side with the president outside an elegant white castle on the grounds of the Kempinski Grand Hotel. When Mr. Bush turned to her and said he has “a strong desire to work with you” on the issue, the chancellor pursed her lips.

Specifically, Mrs. Merkel is pressing the Group of 8 to adopt a plan to cut emissions in half by 2050 and to limit the rise in global temperature to two degrees Celsius — terms the president’s chief environmental adviser, James L. Connaughton, said Wednesday the United States was not prepared to accept.

Ah, but Captain frickin America has a plan!

“Here’s a way to get China and India at the table,” Mr. Bush said Wednesday, in a roundtable with reporters before his lunch with Mrs. Merkel.

He said the United States “can serve as a bridge between some nations who believe that now is the time to come up with a set goal” and “those who are reluctant to participate in the dialogue.”

Ah. So China is going to reform its energy policies just as long as we don't enter into some preemptive agreement with zee Germans? That makes sense; China's just been waiting all this time for us to stop working with Europe; then the laogai will close and the cars will run on happiness instead of diesel cars (which, by the way, are the future of clean - read this)...

To put it mildly, we will be lucky ducks if Bush's isolationist let's-not-even-talk-about-it-ism doesn't result in further anti-American sentiment in Europe and in any other region that cares about its people's health, its forests' existence, its future, &c.

(I'm voting Mos Def / The Lorax in '08.)