Mr. Bush's Climate Summit

In the BBC this morning: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7019346.stm US President George W Bush infuriated his critics by professing world leadership on climate change at his meeting of the top 16 world economies - while offering no new substantive policy and implicitly rejecting binding emissions controls. ...some visiting delegates were outraged by what they said was a stream of spin running through the speech. One (who understandably asked not to be named) said: "This is a total charade. "The president has said he will lead on climate change but he won't agree binding emissions, while other nations will. "He says he will lead on technology but then he asks other countries to contribute funds, without saying how much he'll contribute himself. "It's humiliating for him - a total humiliation." Some delegates were particularly upset by the extravagant invitation by Mr Bush for other nations to follow the US lead in cutting emissions while increasing the economy. Emissions did indeed buck the upward trend by dropping a fraction of 1% in the US during 2006 - but even the American government admits this was due to a warm winter, cool summer and an oil price they considered far too high. And some said it was useful - albeit tedious - to hear American officials lecturing them with the very facts of climate change that they had been ignoring for years. Mr Bush himself says he is organising a summit of world leaders next summer. Privately, some European delegates are already saying they hope their political leaders are not invited. The leader of the Free Daft World. If we had only left him as the owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball team, we could be amused at his pixillated behavior. By teaming him up with George Steinbrenner, we could laugh at their over-the-top antics and giggle at their massacre of the English language. Not since Charley Finley, we would say, have we seen such... idiosyncratic behavior. Then we would smile and watch the October Classic.