Blogger Andrew Sullivan charged Sunday that, whereas in December of last year I advocated a gasoline tax, in my "latest column" on climate change, "the gas tax idea is missing."

"Why?" asks Sullivan. Because: "In the end, the conservative intelligentsia is much more invested in obstructing and thereby neutering Obama and the Democrats than in solving any actual problems in front of us. It's a game for them, and they play it with impunity." He calls this "The Positioning Of Charles Krauthammer," a demonstration of rank partisanship and bad faith.

It is quite a charge: This "latest column" proves that I've positioned my views on a gasoline tax for reasons cynically partisan, mindlessly anti-Obama, interested only in the game of power and not in the welfare of the country....