The McCain pile-on. . .

. . .has begun in earnest. Every pundit who has been an unmitigated failure in persuading the public that global warming, climate change -- whatever you want to call it -- has taken the opportunity to inform us just how much of an idiot he is for recognizing the political reality (if you want to see it cynically), or being among the 86% of Americans who believe that something needs to be done about the issue.

NRO's editorial on McCain's environment speech yesterday:

It indicates a foolish willingness to sacrifice trillions of dollars on the altar of fashionable, though uniformed, opinion and political expediency.

I wonder if the editors at NRO paused to consider for a moment that these trillions of dollars that they're concerned about are a mere pittance in comparison to the multi-trillions of dollars that Barack Obama's plans will cost, and why they didn't bother to recognize that fact in their editorial. I wonder if they thought about whether or not this was something that they should have been addressing with greater regularity and enthusiasm for the past ten years, while the public was steadily being won over by the environmentalist movement until their positions became the overwhelming consensus.

I don't like the idea of giving in to the greenies any more than anyone else does, but there comes a time when you have to face facts. And, the fact is that, in the world we live in today -- the one for which we're trying to elect a leader -- the greenies aren't just a few scattered assemblages of dirty haired trust fund radicals. They're our children's kindergarten teachers, our secretaries, our restaurant managers and shoe salesmen. They're bank managers and construction workers, soccer moms and strippers, pizza delivery guys and dentists. If you stand on any street corner and ask people, "Is global warming real?" nearly nine out of ten people will tell you that it is, and look at you as if you were an idiot for even asking.

The time has long past for conservative media figures to quit carping at candidates who recognize the political reality and get to work on bringing public perceptions in line with the reality-reality. Wasting time and energy criticizing presidential candidates for doing what they must do to get elected, or actually being in step with the public is, quite frankly, idiotic. It will do nothing to change public perceptions and, instead, will undermine the one opportunity put the brakes on an all-out confiscatory environmentalist agenda that could cripple our economy for generations before the public finally starts to question the accepted wisdom.