Ramesh, the president will have caused harm by embracing the global-warming agenda, regardless of the specifics of what he calls for today. The moment he legitimizes the agenda, he will have lost control of the issue. After seven sensible years, now suddenly — with three legislative months remaining in his term of office — he calls for a global-warming bill.

There will be no legislation. That is not the point. The House leadership made clear that their majority is too slight to pretend there was any benefit to having both bodies vote on this. A Senate gesture vote on Lieberman-Warner posed no threat. Congress is rightly terrified of taking responsibility for it. 

Bush wasn't going to get a bill. He still won't get a bill. But he'll be in the Rose Garden today, blinkered by "legacy," saying how important it is to him to have one. In so doing, he will wrench the political center on this issue far to the Left — abandoning a lot of people who stood with him, at no small political risk to themselves, in the process.