Seattle Times Editorial Board Documents Own Epic History of Mistaken Opinion, Irrelevancy

In the Seattle Times this morning there's an article on how Ron Sims' early efforts to raise awareness around global warming, in 1988, made him the laughingstock of the Times editorial page, who accused him of "belching" hyperbolic rhetoric:

"The point is," wrote the amused editorialist, "that the sky-is-falling, icecaps-are-melting, oceans-are-rising rhetoric must be tempered by common sense." With little support for the idea from the environmental community and none from council colleagues, the proposal quickly disappeared.

It's oh-so-self-deprecating. "Our bad!" laughs the Times merrily, now that, 20 years later, they're catching on to this whole "global warming" thing.

On today's editorial page, Bruce Ramsey compares the U.S.'s Republicans and Democrats to Nationalists and Socialists. Republicans are nationalist, he announces, in wanting to keep the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. (That's a bit of a head-scratcher, isn't it? How about pointing out that the Republican push "to deny U.S. citizenship to 'the babies of illegal aliens' by reinterpreting the 14th Amendment" has more to do with the mania for purity seen in fascism, rather than national pride.)

For balance, Ramsey spots socialism in the Democratic plank that reads:

"We believe the public owns the broadcast airwaves and the Internet, which should be managed to serve the public interest. We support ... ensuring that media license holders provide diverse programming ... increased funding for public broadcasting including documentary films and noncommercial news programs; [and] establishing a system for community-level, nonprofit and noncommercial radio and TV."

Dood. It's the hoary old FDR-was-a-socialist mantra resurrected, and how topical, given the current debate of net neutrality. (FDR's Communications Act of 1934 established the public interest in broadcast airwaves, and gives the FCC its power of oversight.) But ideological labels don't clarify the value of net neutrality, just as they don't instruct you on how to deal with global warming.

At the end of the day, what do we have? Global warming: ignore as long as possible, mock early responders. Disturbing U.S. trend toward fascism: misidentify as "nationalism," provide balance by equating network operations with socialism. Psychopathic killers: demand immediate action, blame the parents, kids involved.