John Steele Gordon writing in Commentary Magazine:

Climategate has claimed its first casualty. The AP is reporting that Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, is stepping down "pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change."

Meanwhile, Michael Mann, another major player, is under investigation at Pennsylvania State University.

The White House, however, is deep in nothing-has-changed mode. That perhaps is inevitable given that the president and 70 other heads of state and government will be arriving in Copenhagen next week to hold a conference on limiting greenhouse gases to stop global warming. But the whole idea of global warming is predicated entirely on the validity of the data that Climategate now brings into very serious question. I reiterate my suggestion that the 70 heads of state forget the conference and just enjoy Copenhagen.

The cap-and-trade bill that passed the House and is now stalled in the Senate is still on the president's legislative agenda. But it's hard to see why any senator would take a political risk voting for it now. It is politically a lot easier - not to mention a lot wiser - to insist on getting to the bottom of all this first. When wisdom and political expediency coincide, politicians can be counted on to be wise.

Ed Lasky adds:

How many billions wasted, how much bloviating; how much cap and trade angst; how much Kyoto Protocol touting? A giant fraud perpetrated by a few people with many in the media, academic, political and entertainment worlds promoting a Big Lie.

Sounds like Obama's campaign for the Presidency.

Indeed it does. And even if the investigations are whitewashed both here and abroad; even if the Copenhagen conference ignores Climategate, the political dynamic that was driving global warming is changing.

Australia has just defeated its own version of cap and trade. New Zealand is also wavering on carbon limits. The Copenhagen conference has scaled back its grand plans for a virtual UN takeover of the economies of the world.

And here in this country, the senate version of the cap and trade bill is in serious trouble. This was true even before Climategate broke so you can imagine that it is now in danger of being scuttled altogether.

We here in the US are they key. If we can stop this madness here, there's a good chance the religion of global warming will die from simple lack of oxygen. Kyoto collapsed because we didn't participate. The same can happen to anything the one worlders, the statists, the Luddites, and the anti-capitalists who are driving this foolishness want to impose on the rest of us.