{"id":6051,"date":"2005-12-10T11:16:36","date_gmt":"2005-12-10T16:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6051"},"modified":"2005-12-10T11:16:36","modified_gmt":"2005-12-10T16:16:36","slug":"the-only-way-to-deal-with-a-bully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-only-way-to-deal-with-a-bully\/","title":{"rendered":"The only way to deal with a bully"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on yesterday’s post<\/a> about Bill Clinton “annoying<\/a>” Bush administration officials by making a surprise, last-minute appearance at a U.N. conference on global warming, there’s a fascinating back story that highlights the child-like behavior of the president’s envoys to the gathering. <\/p>\n

New York magazine’s Greg Sargent learned that Bush officials “privately threatened<\/a>” conference organizers after learning about Clinton’s speech, insisting that if Clinton appeared, it would ruin any chance of the United States signing on to a climate-change agreement. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson confirmed the details, saying, “It’s just astounding. It came through loud and clear from the Bush people — they wouldn’t sign the deal if Clinton were allowed to speak.”<\/p>\n

As disconcerting as this was, it’s worth recognizing that organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference were simply unwilling to let the Bush administration push them around.<\/p>\n

The contretemps started late Thursday afternoon, when the Associated Press ran a story saying that Clinton had been added at the last minute to the gathering’s speaking schedule at the request of conference organizers. According to the source, barely minutes after the news leaked, conference organizers called Clinton aides and told them that Bush-administration officials were displeased.<\/p>\n

“The organizers said the Bush people were threatening to pull out of the deal,” the source said. After some deliberation between Clinton and his aides, Clinton decided he wouldn’t speak, added the source: “President Clinton immediately said, ‘There’s no way that I’m gonna let petty politics get in the way of the deal. So I’m not gonna come.’ That’s the message [the Clinton people] sent back to the organizers.”<\/p>\n

But the organizers of the conference didn’t want to accept a Bush-administration dictum. They asked Clinton that he go ahead with the speech. “The organizers decided to call the administration’s bluff,” the source said. “They said, ‘We’re gonna push [the Bush people] back on this.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good for them. The Bush gang had been acting like children throughout the conference anyway, and hadn’t done much to impress or influence delegations from the rest of the world. These threats over Clinton’s appearance were the last straw — so they were ignored.<\/p>\n

Late Thursday night, organizers called Clinton aides to explain that Bush’s envoys had backed down. In fact, it appears Clinton shamed Bush administration officials into accepting concessions<\/a> they wouldn’t have otherwise.
\n<\/p>\n

The United States dropped its opposition early Saturday morning to nonbinding talks on addressing global warming after a few words were adjusted in the text of statements that, 24 hours earlier, prompted a top American official to walk out on negotiations.<\/p>\n

At the same time, other industrialized nations that have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty binding them to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, agreed to start meeting to set new deadlines once the existing pact’s terms expire in 2012. <\/p>\n

Such is the nature of progress in the 17-years-and-counting effort by the world’s nations to act in the face of scientists’ conclusions that emissions from burning essential fuels like coal and oil are raising temperatures and could potentially disrupt climate patterns and inundate coasts.<\/p>\n

The United States and China, the world’s current and projected leaders in greenhouse gas emissions, still refused to agree to mandatory steps to curtail the emissions as the talks drew toward a close early Saturday. But there was a growing sense that some longstanding barriers, particularly between developed and developing nations, were starting to erode under the weight of evidence that climate was shifting in potentially dangerous ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect the Bush officials will say it was a coincidence, but consider the series of events:<\/p>\n

* On Thursday afternoon, the U.S. delegation stormed out of informal negotiations on a climate change agreement.<\/p>\n

* On Thursday evening, the delegation learned that Clinton would appear, causing Bush’s envoys to freak out and threaten to pull out altogether.<\/p>\n

* Late Thursday evening, U.N. officials forced the U.S. delegation to back down.<\/p>\n

* Friday, Clinton spoke and told the world how wrong Bush is on global warming.<\/p>\n

* Early Saturday morning, the U.S. delegation agreed to participate in additional nonbinding talks.<\/p>\n

Nice job, Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on yesterday’s post about Bill Clinton “annoying” Bush administration officials by making a surprise, last-minute appearance at a U.N. conference on global warming, there’s a fascinating back story that highlights the child-like behavior of the president’s envoys to the gathering. New York magazine’s Greg Sargent learned that Bush officials “privately threatened” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}