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After being ridiculed for the last four years for changing his positions whenever a Republican primary voter looks at him funny, Mitt Romney dips his toe into the cool, clear waters of reality:
I don't speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world's getting warmer. I can't prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don't know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you're seeing.Mitt sounds like a guy who knows he's about to get punched in the face. He's flinching two or three times in every sentence, with so many caveats about his uncertainty and our uncertainty and the uncertainty of existence in a mysterious universe that you almost expect him to conclude with, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Tell you what -- forget I said anything about it."At this point, I'm obligated to point out that despite his acknowledgement that global warming is real, not only does Romney support increased use of fossil fuels, he has also reversed his prior position on cap-and-trade, which used to be that such a system is a "great thing," but is now that such a system is a nefarious crypto-European plot to destroy the American economy. In other words, Romney thinks global warming is happening, he just doesn't think we should actually do anything about it. Which, for a Republican running for president in 2012, is a pretty bold stance. Lots of people think of Mitt Romney as simply a chameleon, a shameless panderer whose lust for the Oval Office is so great he'll say or do anything to get there. But that's not how I look at him. There's an eternal war going on inside him, between Good Mitt and Bad Mitt. Good Mitt is smart, competent, and pragmatic, interested in solving problems even if the solutions don't conform to other people's ideological expectations. Bad Mitt is the chameleon, the guy who panders to the worst impulses in his fellow Republicans. Unfortunately for him, Bad Mitt gets most of the attention. But Good Mitt is still in there, trying to get out.