Joe Biden doesn't need to pander to environmentalists

Plagiarizing the left's climate plans can only hurt him

Joe Biden.
(Image credit: Illustrated | REUTERS/Kyle Grillot, hjalmeida/iStock, BackyardProduction/iStock, Nataliashein/iStock)

Crazy Uncle Joe. You know the guy: Former veep blasting around Dover in a red-hot T-top, probably a Stingray, with his shades on, explaining to the chick next to him that as far as their neglected '80s catalogue goes, Foghat's In the Mood for Something Rude whips so much ass and ... endorsing the Green New Deal? The same guy who, on a scale of Jay "My campaign is literally only about climate change" Inslee to John "They smoke that stuff in my state" Hickenlooper, scores well, a John Hickenlooper, since Greenpeace gives both of them a D-minus rating on the environment?

On Tuesday, Biden's campaign released a 22-page document outlining his new position on climate change. True to form for a guy who upended his first presidential campaign 31 years ago by trying to pass off a speech by a Welsh coal miner's son as his own at the Iowa State Fair, the Biden climate plan appears to be largely a cut-and-paste job assembled out of various talking points from outfits with names like the "Center for Climate and Energy Solutions."

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.