Tap, Tap: Craig Returns To Partisan Politics, Weighs In On Global Warming, Hillary

After months of seemingly self-imposed exile, Sen. Larry Craig is tapping his foot back into the national political scene.

The Idaho senator abruptly weighed in today on global warming, charging in a statement that Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate energy committee, is "rushing" into climate legislation without making a cost-benefit analysis. Boxer is a popular punching bag of conservative activists.

"We need to perform a fair and responsible vetting of all the climate change alternatives before us," Craig said. "My position is perfectly clear: a cap and trade system is obsolete in its approach to green house gas reductions, it has not worked, and I do not see it working."

Later in the statement, Craig offered back-handed praise to Hillary Clinton for what he says is her similar approach to global warming. Noting his support for a "sector by sector trading approach," Craig said, "I was pleased to see that Senator Clinton supports a similar approach, albeit on the unrealistic side given her political realities."

It's been a while since Craig has taken shots at other members of Congress. After it was announced that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for soliciting a plainclothes officer in a Minneapolis airport men's room, virtually all of his public pronouncements have related to local concerns, with subjects like "Senate Supports Special Olympics In Idaho," and "Craig Pushes Legacy Waste Removal Out Of Idaho." Not that there's anything wrong with that.