The story is at ThinkProgress. Money can’t buy you happiness, but apparently it can buy you silence, which, apparently, is sometimes just as good.

Change — a perennial theme in presidential campaigns — has taken on a more serious meaning this election season. Of all the promises being put forward by the presidential candidates, change may be the most frequent

“Change” usually is a word used by candidates who don’t have much Washington experience, but want to package their inexperience as a virtue. But allegiance to “change” is far more important If we want to confront global warming, energy insecurity and peak oil over the next 4-8 years — not to mention Iraq, the deficit, health care costs and several other messes the Bush Administration is leaving to its successors — change will be the name of the game. Big change, in fact.

There is wide acknowledgment that America needs to come together to solve some of these problems. We need a uniter not a divider in the White House, for real this time. We have enough common causes, certainly, around which we should rally. What we don’t have is trust.

If you asked most Americans today what one word comes to mind when they think about the White House, “trust” probably would not be their answer. It’s not good sport to take potshots at lame ducks, so I’ll resist the temptation to rant. I’ll just say that the presidency we’ve experienced in the past seven years (think Cheney energy plan, Plame, WMDs, censured science, fired attorneys, erased CIA videos, lost White House e-mails, etc.) has reinforced the perception that Washington is a culture not only of incompetence, but of flagrant and unabashed dishonesty. It has been a great seven years not only for Leno, Stewart and Letterman, but also for the cynicism industry.

But cynicism will not get us through problems as urgent and intractable as global warming. If I were writing the talking points for the candidates, I would have them say this: The first item on the national agenda is not a change in policies; it’s a change in our culture of leadership.

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The Center for American Progress has put out a clear and concise description of “What Is Cap and Trade, and How Can We Implement It Successfully?”

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