Common sense?

The political rhetoric is already at flame-thrower level, and we're just getting started.  In a few months, presidential candidates will be calling for each other's heads on pikes.  That alone wouldn't worry me much, if it weren't that the future of science and the environment are among the chips on the table.  A laughable Republican field ranges from future also-ran moderates like Jon Huntsman to lunatic potential nominees like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann (with the Alaskan she-beast waiting in the wings).  On the other side, Democratic leaders, including Barack Obama, appear increasingly cowardly in the defense of their core principles.  The result?  A climate in which Perry's disparaging remarks about evolutionary theory or Bachmann's denial of the evidence supporting climate change will find an increasingly receptive audience on the right and meet timid resistance on the left.  That's frightening.  We can't afford another step backward.  It would behoove conservatives, and serve the nation, if they would remember that much of our history of environmental protection has Republican  roots.  It would be easier to respect the right if they would embrace this history rather than running from it.