OK, now it' s getting silly. We were willing to consider that, despite a couple of years of study, the Interior Department might need a few more weeks to decide whether the polar bear should be listed as threatened. It's not a simple case. As the first such decision made on the basis of global warming, it's fraught with all the "how bad will it get?" uncertainty the subject brings up. But the timing — rushing through oil-lease sales in polar-bear habitat before the species decision could be made — sure was convenient.

The "few weeks" has turned into two months with no sign of an impending decision. Some environmental groups predictably have sued — in fact, should the nation get a more environmentally oriented president next time, a few environmental lawyers who have been very busy the past seven years might find themselves job-hunting — and now the department's own inspector general is doing a "preliminary investigation."

Listing the bear would require this country to do something about global warming, and the thought of all those sacrifices we'll have to make (beyond reusing our plastic water bottles a couple of times) can get a little scary. Listing the bear is really just a ruse, to force us to save ourselves.