A Moderate Bush Wins NYT Kudos for Climate Change Concern, Unlike Anti-'Climate Science' Ideology of Texas GOP

August 31st, 2014 6:20 PM

Strange New Respect? The national edition of Sunday's New York Times featured a favorable profile of a Bush family politician: George P. Bush (son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush) who's running for a minor state government post in Texas this fall. So what makes him worthy of a news story in the Sunday Times?

Well, here's the headline: "On Climate, a Younger Bush’s Ideas Stray From Party Ideology." Ah, that would explain it. Reporter Neena Satija clearly approved:

On the campaign trail in Texas for a little-known statewide office, George P. Bush is generally toeing the Republican Party line: He is attacking the federal health care overhaul, decrying abortion and championing gun rights.

But it is environmental policy that will be under his purview if, as expected, he wins his race to be the state’s next land commissioner in November. Last week, in his first in-depth interview on the topic nearly a year and a half into his campaign, the son of former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, nephew of former President George W. Bush and grandson of former President George H. W. Bush sounded like anything but the Tea Party conservatives with whom he has aligned himself.

For starters, the younger Mr. Bush thinks climate change is a serious threat to Texas, though he stopped short of definitively attributing a hotter and drier state to human activity.

(Satija writes for the Texas Tribune, a left-leaning non-profit journalism center. It has a partnership with the Times, which reprints its journalism on a regular basis.)