The CBS Evening News has come up with an interesting little feature. Katie Couric’s show, as part of its “Primary Questions: Character, Leadership & The Candidates” series, comes up with a simple, straightforward question, and then asks the 10 leading presidential candidates from both parties to offer a short, straightforward answer. Last week, for example, the candidates were asked to talk a little bit about their “biggest mistake.”
This week, the question was slightly more substantive, though worded poorly: “Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?”
The Dems answered the question fairly well. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama all said the risk isn’t over-hyped; Joe Biden, for whatever reason, didn’t answer the question directly, but seemed like he was on the right track; and Bill Richardson had perhaps the best answer: “No, if anything they’re underblown.”
So far, so good. Even a few of the Republicans weren’t completely wrong. Mitt Romney called the risks associated with climate change “real.” John McCain said, “I’ve been to the Arctic and I know it’s real.” Rudy Giuliani added, “There is global warming. Human beings are contributing to it.”
And then there were the other two.
FRED THOMPSON: There are a lot of unanswered questions. We don’t know to the extent this is a cyclical thing. This may or may not effect very much. The extremists are the ones who want to do drastic things to our economy before we have more answers as to how much good we can do and whether people in the other parts of the world are going to contribute. It’s the fact that our entitlements are bankrupting the next generation…. [Entitlements are] a more obvious problem [than global warming].
MIKE HUCKABEE: I don’t know. I mean, the honest answer for me, scientifically, is I don’t know. But here’s one thing I do know, that we ought to not let this become this big political football and point of argument. We all ought to agree that we live on this planet as guests…. I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.
Oh my.
First, there’s reality.
Thompson and Huckabee are wrong. The debate is over about whether manmade global warming is a threat. Even members of the Bush White House have admitted so.
Second, there’s Huckabee’s notion that the United States can be “be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade.” I’m pretty sure that’s physically impossible. Kevin Drum tries to figure out what on earth the statement even means.
There are a couple of possibilities, but I suppose the most likely is “free of energy imports,” or perhaps “free of foreign oil.”
This, of course, has the benefit of not being literally impossible, but I wonder if anyone will bother to follow up with him about this? After all, ending foreign oil consumption in the next decade is the next best thing to impossible, and in any case, would require federal action of a staggering size and scope — certainly far more staggering than anything Huckabee has ever given the remotest indication of supporting. Basically, he was just randomly shooting his mouth off without the slightest idea of what he was talking about.
So, again: will anyone press him on this? Or will he get the village idiot treatment that Republicans since Ronald Reagan have so often gotten, where they’re sort of expected to say harebrained stuff and nobody holds it against them? After all, this has nothing to do with Huckabee’s hair, his cleavage, or his middle name, only with the fact that he displays an almost comical, grade-school ignorance of even the bare basics of national energy policy. And who cares about that in a president of the United States?
Third, Couric pressed McCain on why energy company lobbyists have been successful in blocking any serious policy proposals. He neglected to mention that the Republican Party is bought and paid for.
And fourth, what kind of question is, “Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?” By its very wording, the implication is that the risks may very well be overblown, which kind of poisons the well a bit. If I were to ask, “Do you think Rudy Giuliani might be a raving lunatic?” the question suggests the answer. My defense would be, “I didn’t say Giuliani is a raving lunatic; I just asked about the possibility.” I doubt Giuliani would find the defense persuasive, though.