CORRECTION

Brad at Sadly, No! points out the spectacularly awful journalism which led me to write an unintentionally awful post downthread about Bill Clinton's remarks on global warming.

ABC's Jake Tapper wrote the following in a story that appeared online this morning:

Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday.

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

I reacted with slack-jawed astonishment at the political tone-deafness of Clinton suggesting, as we teeter on the edge of recession, that slowing down the economy might be on his wife's campaign agenda.

Well, Brad hunted up Clinton's actual statement on reducing greenhouse gases, and the message is actually the opposite of what Tapper communicated.

“Everybody knows that global warming is real,” Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, “but we cannot solve it alone.”

“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

How much clearer could this be? Clinton actually said that it would be unwise to slow down our economy as a method of combating global warming, if for no other reason than developing countries would be unlikely to follow our lead. He said that the better way to go about it would be in creating alternative fuels that could create a more sustainable economy.

Are major political reporters in this country honestly this stupid? Aren’t they embarrassed to be publishing this crap? When even the very dim bulbs at the Corner call you out on stuff like this, you know you’ve really stepped in it.

By taking Tapper's account at face value and making an uninformed judgment about President Clinton, I really stepped in it. I will try not to make that mistake again.