OPINION:
Sen. Mike Lee’s shoot-down of the ridiculously bureaucratic and bloated Green New Deal? Classic.
And nobody knows it better than its leading sponsor, the socialist-minded Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose smart-mouth response to Lee’s shoot-down has revealed her desperation — her growing awareness that, legislatively speaking, she’s simply bitten off more than she could chew.
Here’s what transpired: Lee, from the floor of the Senate, showcased some of the most fantastical, bizarre, absurd and fanciful illustrations he could conjure — like Ronald Reagan firing a machine gun while sitting atop a flying dinosaur, against the backdrop of an American flag — in order to, as he said, “rise” “to consider the Green New Deal with the level of seriousness it deserves.”
He described: “You will note both the rocket launcher strapped to his back and the stirring patriotism of the velociraptor holding up the tattered American flag.”
Classic.
And his rationale for the illustrations?
“Unlike some of my colleagues, I am not immediately afraid of what carbon emissions, unaddressed, might do our environment, our civilization, and our planet,” Lee said. “Unlike others, I am not immediately afraid of what the Green New Deal would do to our economy and our government. After all, it’s not going to pass today. Rather, after reading the Green New Deal, I am mostly afraid of not being able to get through this speech with a straight face. For Mr. President, I rise today to consider the Green New Deal with the level of seriousness it deserves.”
He went on to show illustrations of “tauntauns,” those “beloved species of repto-mammals native to the ice planet of Hoth,” that could serve as “carbon-neutral” transports for humans; of the superhero cartoon Aquaman, riding his “twenty-foot sea horse,” as a means of showing “probably Hawaii’s best bet” for green-friendly substitutes for airplanes, which the Green New Deal phases out; and finally, in dramatic conclusion, of a group of babies, as a means of showing the utter futility of relying on government to solve climate change matters.
“The solution to climate change won’t be found in political posturing or virtue signaling like this,” Lee said. “It won’t be found in the federal government at all. You know where the solution can be found? In churches, wedding chapels and maternity wards across the country and around the world. This, Mr. President, is the real solution to climate change: babies. Climate change is an engineering problem — not the social engineering, but the real kind. It’s a challenge of creativity, ingenuity and technological invention.”
His remark about the babies was immediately taken out of context and derided by Green New Deal-loving leftists. But in context, Lee’s point was both clear and compelling: It’s not the government, stupid.
It’s human ingenuity.
In context, Lee’s comment also aptly pointed out the horrors of viewpoints of those — like Ocasio-Cortez — who’ve suggested that environmentalism comes before humanity, and that people, out of due concern for the trees and air and water, ought to think twice about having babies.
Bam.
Poor Ocasio-Cortez. This was a mocking of her oh-so-easily-mockable legislative attempt that will go down in history as — well, as classic.
And nobody knew it better than Ocasio-Cortez herself.
When Waleed Shahid tweeted the out-of-context quote of Lee’s remark about marriage and babies — the bit that went “the solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married and have some kids” — Ocasio-Cortez snarked back on Twitter: “Like many other women + working people, I occasionally suffer from imposter syndrome: those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right. But then they do things like this to clear it right up. If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything.”
Nope.
She should’ve stuck with her first instincts — the Lees and Green New Deal-opposers of the nation are definitely in the right. Her sneaking suspicion of being in the wrong is actually one of her first times in Congress of being right.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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