This nugget from the Washington Post’s account of the lobbying effort on cap-and-trade is revealing:

When Obama entered the fray on May 5, summoning all 36 committee Democrats to the White House, he didn’t make a single demand. Rather, participants say, he pointed to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and said, “He had a chance to affect history. You, too, have a chance to affect history.”

The moral preening and self-regard is stunning. Yeah, just as Lincoln freed the slaves, they too can leave their mark by tens of billions in taxes for no measurable change in the world’s output of carbon emissions. Same deal. One wonders if they buy this hooey. I suppose some do.

Equally noteworthy is the lack of content in the argument. Does the president know what’s in the bill and ever argue on its merits, or is the schlocky salesmanship all we can expect from the White House? One wonders whether anyone in that room remotely understood the brew of anti-free trade, regulatory sleight of hand, and lobbying give-away’s that rendered the bill’s “carbon limits” nearly meaningless. No wonder Obama considers anyone who opposes the bill to be “fear mongering.” You’d think so too if what you were selling was political immortality.