So here’s a money line from President Obama’s global warming riff during tonite’s SOU:

“even if you doubt the evidence [for Man-made global warming], providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future. Because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the world.”

Now, put aside the rather thin empirical or even theoretical evidence for his economic hypothesis, and recall then-senator Tim Wirth’s eerily similar formulation in 1988 — the very same year he helped invent global warming as a policy issue with his “stagecraft” hearing featuring James Hansen, with Al Gore accompanying him on the Alarmacord:

“try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

Twenty-two years. Still waiting for warming. Still using the threat as the vehicle for their agenda. And with rhetoric either cribbed or so closely paraphrased Wirth ought to demand a script credit. The very boldness of these fresh ideas and approaches send a thrill down my leg.