The Washington Post ran my letter on Saturday correcting their latest (re)iteration of the establishment media’s template story that it is George W. Bush somehow keeping the U.S. from salvation under the duly signed Kyoto Protocol. The original letter noted that this story line will soon pose the Post, et al., a conundrum (original closing paragraph, below).

The Details Of Kyoto Saturday, June 9, 2007; Page A15 The June 5 World News article “China Outlines Modest Environmental Goals” asserted that the “Bush administration has refused to ratify” the Kyoto Protocol. The Constitution vests 101 individuals with roles in forming treaties, one of whom is the president. Pursuant to Article II, Section 2, the president is limited to making agreements; he has no constitutional role in ratification. Once a pact is signed — as Kyoto was on Nov. 12, 1998 — the executive function is one of protocol. The president may send a transmittal letter seeking a Senate vote, which usually but not always asks for ratification. An example is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, for which President Bill Clinton lobbied. Alternatively, he may do nothing beyond the act of signing, or maintaining a predecessor’s signature on, a pact. An example is Clinton signing Kyoto but deciding against seeking ratification, a stance inherited and adopted by President Bush. A president is not empowered to ratify a treaty; only the Senate is. The Post should know better. – Christopher C. Horner Washington

Original closing:

News outlets regularly must simplify complex issues out of necessity, which with almost equal regularity leads to non-material mischaracterizations. However, the claim that a president can ratify a treaty is materially inaccurate. There will soon be a new president, making it three in a row who have “refused to ratify Kyoto” though, of course, they can do no such thing. Only the Senate may ratify a treaty, and they may do so once it is signed. The Post would do its readers a favor by spending the extra words required to accurately portray the matter.