Elizabeth Edwards has sworn off tangerines, and the right-wing has predictably gone bananas.
"We've been moving back to 'buy local,'" Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that "acknowledges the carbon footprint" of transporting fruit. "I live in North Carolina. I'll probably never eat a tangerine again," she said, speaking of a time when the fruit reaches the price that it "needs" to be. (Source)
A carbon footprint is the measure of the carbon dioxide emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels. The top ten tangerine producers include China, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Iran, Thailand, Egypt, Pakistan, Italy and Turkey. The United States' relationship with many of these countries is, at best, strained.
Mrs. Edwards has emerged as a plum target during her husband's campaign for President. Conservative pundits were quick to unleash the grapes of wrath upon her. No one has gotten so worked up about produce since Captain Queeg launched his search for the missing strawberries.
But step back a minute. In the larger picture, Mrs. Edwards is suggesting economic sanctions against countries that are contributing more than their share toward the problem of global warming. Economic sanctions remain one of the best non-violent ways to alter the behavior of a foreign government. After all, many conservatives believe that it was the withdraw of US dollars from the South African economy that led to the end of the odious practice of apartheid.
But, in the raisin-sized reasoning centers of many of Mrs. Edward's critics such comparisons are false. They claim that comparing institutionalized subjugation of a people to practices that threaten all life on the planet is like comparing apples to oranges.
What can I say? Looking for consistency in right-wing opinions has always been a fruitless endeavor.