Global warming is to Democrats as Global terrorism is to...

Read an interesting article over at New Majority, which brought up some interesting points regarding the cap & trade bill, Democrats & Republicans, and the tendancy of Politicians to fling baseless accusations along the lines of "treason."

In a phone interview with MSNBC, Representative Henry Waxman, D-CA, accused the Republican party of being unamerican in voting against the cap & trade, stimulus, and budget measure. Waxman used some surprisingly familiar rhetoric when he said that the GOP has been "rooting against the country" by voting no on the Democrats' bills.

In the article, the author first gives part of Rep. Waxman's accusations:

So far, this Congress -- since Obama became President -- the Republicans have said no to an economic stimulus bill, they’re saying no to a global warming bill... They want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming. I wish they were playing a more constructive role. Some Republicans doubt the whole science of global warming, even though the consensus is overwhelming. They don’t want to believe it.

The author then points out the similarities in the rhetoric from the left on global warming, and the rhetoric from just a few years ago from the right on global terrorism. He takes Waxman's quote, and replaces "global warming" with phrases about the war on terror and Iraq:

So far, this Congress -- since they became the majority -- the Democrats have said no to the troop surge, they’re saying no to a war funding bill... They want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Republicans. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global terrorism. I wish they were playing a more constructive role. Some Democrats doubt the whole success of the surge, even though the consensus is overwhelming. They don’t want to believe it.

Hmm. Interesting. Never thought about it that way. The similarities are striking.

Don't believe it? Here's Paul Krugman from the NY Times:
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

Whoa.

The author of the article points out that both sides are looking for "snakes in the garden," being vigilant against those they view as trying to ruin the country. But, he points out, "his accusation was both wrongly directed and poorly applied."

That happens on both sides of the aisle. It really should stop. I like how he ends the article:

...In Waxman's recent episode, legitimate concern was mistaken for callous sedition, quite possibly because he (like Krugman and others) truly believes global warming is a more deadly threat than radical Islam. In his world, regrettably, basic policy skepticism is “treason” and the largest tax on the middle class in more than a decade, in the words of another Democrat, is “patriotic.”

Funny, you could switch that around as well.