Fred Hiatt criticizes your position on climate change. But Mitch McConnell and the GOP have managed this feat. Blind squirrels and nuts and all that.

A genuine conservative, as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state George P. Shultz has written, would acknowledge uncertainties in climate science but look for rational, market-based policies to lessen the risk without slowing economic growth. A revenue-neutral carbon tax, as in a bill Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has introduced, fits the description precisely.

What then explains the know-nothingism of today’s Republicans? Some of them see scientists as part of a left-wing cabal; many of them doubt government’s ability to do anything, let alone something as big as redirecting the economy’s energy use. Almost all of them, along with quite a few Democrats, would rather not tell voters that energy prices need to rise for the sake of the environment.

Hiatt manages in the same breath to both shout out our own Chris Van Hollen and to engage in the journalistic sham of Both Sides Do It. Quite a feat. But give the devil his due - at least Hiatt seems to actually believe in the urgent need for action on climate change.