I Hate What You Just Said

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

The Independent

What else can I say?  Our president is a dick who thinks that he’s funny.  Sure, you argue, Bush gave some ground at the talks, agreeing for the first time to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2050 after extracting signatures from China and India.  But these targets are well below those set by Kyoto protocol and such emissions are still on the rise worldwide and in the U.S.

Yeah, things are looking up, good times ahead.  We’re finally headed in the right direction and the G8 is showing the kind of leadership necessary to get the job done:

One day, in particular, he said, was “gloriously incoherent.” At a meeting in the morning, participants focused on finding ways to reduce gas prices, he said, while a session that afternoon focused on raising them through caps or taxes on fossil fuels.

The most discouraging aspect of the statements out of Japan, for many experts, was seeing the persistent gap between what science is saying about global warming and what countries are doing.

New York Times

Speaking with one voice…out of both sides of the mouth.  Now, that’s funny.

Those Irish punks have ruined everything, now Poland :

In a newspaper interview published Tuesday, Mr. Kaczynski said it would “pointless” to sign the Lisbon Treaty in light of the Irish rejection.

Damn, that’s the height of amazing nerve.  I’ll bet Sarko’s not happy.

“The European idea is in danger if we don’t protect Europeans,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday.

What’s the “European idea” you ask? Is it a more moderate, sensible version of the American dream? A collective light bulb hovering over Belgium?  What kind of fuel economy does it get?  Does it include peeing standing up?

In a surprisingly frank admission, the French foreign minister, Bernard Koucher said the no vote in Ireland illustrated how the European Union had alienated its citizens by conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.

“They understand nothing,” Mr. Kouchner said in comments to journalists in Paris “The institutions interest no one.”

He argued that, in contrast, voters did appreciate that Europe “was not able to respond to the rise in the price of petrol.” As for the jargon in which business in Brussels is conducted, Mr. Kouchner said, “no one understands — including me.”

New York Times

Conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.  Good thing we don’t have that problem here in the greatest and best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.

You might be forgiven for not having registered the significance of the Irish public’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, viewed by some as the failed 2005 “constitution” of the European Union in drag, last week. Perhaps you saw an article flit by the New York Times website over the weekend before the issue took a backseat to Kobe’s ongoing experiment in athletic eugenics at the NBA Finals or the latest journalist (yes I’m thinking about you Kristol) to elegize the passing of Tim Russert. And damn, wasn’t that a clutch put Tiger sunk to force a playoff?

Meanwhile, somewhere outside Donegal all hell broke loose in European politics. A relatively small European country, Ireland (the only country to put the ratification of the treaty to a referendum so far) is an exemplary case of what is at stake, as the treaty seeks to further centralize key policy positions–such as labor regulations and foreign policy–at the expense of member state autonomy:

The Lisbon treaty is complex. It offers sweeping changes to the way the union runs—creating a new full-time “president” to represent member states, and a foreign-policy chief to speak for Europe round the world. It also sweeps away national vetoes in some important areas of policy, such as cross-border policing and justice. Many Irish no voters voiced suspicions that the treaty would, in reality, rob their small state of clout at the EU’s top tables.

The Economist

“EU leaders were to be heard crowing last year that they had made it “unintelligible” in order to smuggle it past voters,” The Economist continues, rightly noting that this was a much easier task in most European countries, eighteen of which had already shoved it through their respective parliaments with little or no debate.

“So pay no attention to the wailing in Brussels,” writes Anne Appelbaum, “If the most enthusiastic Europeans in Europe didn’t care enough to read the treaty they’ve just rejected, then maybe it’s just as well it didn’t pass.” I guess Applebaum figues that libertarianism European-style means more centralized government and concentrated economic and military power. Apparently, European citizens lack the free-thinking gene possessed by all rational, Cato Institute supporting Americans that allow them to cut through hundreds of pages of bureaucratic doublespeak. But I digress.

Predictably, establishment politicians have been wringing their hands over the result, especially from the larger states, who stood to gain the most. Nicholas Sarkozy, the immigrant-bashing-top-model-marrying-archconservative president of France is especially pissed off. He’s threatening to travel to Ireland to learn firsthand why they had the temerity to say no to even more big business payola and the prospect of increased European military integration. Guess which countries would assume effective control of the latter? Now you’re getting the picture. Stay tuned, France assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in July.