More on Newt

Bradfod Plumer of the New Republic weighs in on the Kerry-Gingrich debate, but gets it completely wrong. He says:

Kerry stumps for the reliably liberal answer: The government needs to set a cap on carbon emissions and then allow businesses to trade pollution credits. Gingrich, for his part, argues that "regulation and litigation are the least effective methods of getting a solution," and he trusts the power of an "incentivized market" to fix the problem on its own. Technologies as yet unseen will save us. Tax cuts will get us there. It's all of a piece with Gingrich's long-documented futurist outlook. But, as he unveils his starry eyed vision, Gingrich reveals that, despite his green conversion, he's still sticking by some of the most pernicious dogmas of the conservative movement...

In the end, the former speaker himself offers perhaps the most elegant explanation of why global warming is a difficult problem for conservatives--even for someone who, like himself, professes to care deeply about the environment. "For most of the last 30 years, the environment has been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes," he says. "Even if it's the right thing to do, you end up fighting it because it's bigger government and higher taxes." Jonathan Chait has argued in TNR that conservatism's adherence to this sort of dogma makes it a less pragmatic governing philosophy than liberalism. Gingrich may be greener than your average Republican, but he's not ready to stray too far off the reservation.

Gingrich isn't sticking to the "pernicious dogmas of the conservative movement" - he's turning his back on the most sensible argument conservatives have made since the Reagan era, that it makes sense to harness the power of the market to attack big problems like global warming. He's not unwilling to "stray too far off the reservation" - he and his whole conservative movement have strayed off the reservation leaving 21st century conservatism, apparently, a hollow shell.

I've mentioned previously why I think conseratives like Gingrich as well as Bush have turned their backs on "the market." They are in thrall to big corporate campaign contributors in whose interest it is to deny the very existence of global warming and other big problems. And they have been whipped by the anti-tax crowd to oppose any kind of new tax. And if they must offer a proposal to address a widely-recognized problem, it must be in the form of a tax cut.

Someone please tell me what conservatives stand for!