Charleston, WV -- It might surprise you to learn that Charleston, West Virginia, is a hotbed of communist activity and that the leader of the Marxist cell here is the editor of the Charleston Gazette, James A. Haught. But the source is certainly reliable -- Massey Coal Company CEO Don Blankenship. Blankenship seems to be in a bad mood these days. (His stock price is down from over ninety dollars to the teens since July.)

So at a speech at the Tug Valley Mining Institute, he lashed out with these remarkable musings:

"It is as great a pleasure for me to be criticized by the communists and the atheists of the Charleston Gazette as to be applauded by my best friends," he said. "Because I know they are wrong. People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies. Would we be upset if Osama Bin Laden was critical of us?"

He went on to criticize environmental organizations, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid with the following terms, which he said were the only ones the general public could understand:

"Totally wrong. Nonsense. Absolutely crazy."

"When we talk about it in more articulate ways, the American public doesn't get it."

Blankenship went on to dismiss the idea that protecting the environment should be anyone's concern:

"They can say what they want about climate change. But the only thing melting in this country that matters is our financial system and our economy."

He also explained where the real risk of a Communist take over of the U.S. comes from -- it all begins with energy efficiency:

"Jimmy Carter understood that there was a risk if we increased our dependence on foreign oil. But did it not sound similar to Obama? Turn down your thermostats? Buy a smaller car? Conserve? I have spent quite a bit of time in Russia and China, and that's the first stage. You go from having your own car to carpooling to riding the bus to mass transit. You eventually get to where you're walking. You go from your own apartment and bathroom to sharing kitchens with four families. That's what socialism and the elimination of capitalism and free enterprise is all about."

And finally he offered his solution -- better spin:

"Massey is working hard to come up with soundbites or what sort of messages might resonant publicly. Unless we get people to think positively about coal, we are in trouble not only as an industry, but also as a country."

If you'd like to offer your soundbites, you can go to the Sierra Club's "Clean Coal Is Not the Answer" website and enter your best ideas. We'll put a billboard with the winning entry on a truck and drive it to where Mr. Blankenship will be sure to see it.

James Madison. The Founding Father who gave us a system of checks and balances that, for the past eight years, has stymied an Administration that was hell-bent on dismantling the environmental safety net of the past 100 years. George W. Bush will leave a limited (if devastating) legacy from coal, oil and gas extraction, but most of the infrastructure that was designed to prevent such destruction has been preserved.

Greg Nickels. The Seattle mayor who proved that if the federal government wouldn't lead on climate change, states and cities could. More than 1,000 Cool Cities, dozens of Cool Counties and almost half of the states have now taken leadership action and committed the U.S. to rejoin the rest of the world in the fight against the climate crisis.

Fran Pavley. The former California assemblywomen who led her state in adopting Clean Car Standards for CO2 that finally brought the auto industry to the table to compromise on its greenhouse gas emissions last fall -- perhaps (we'll see) even in time to save the U.S. companies from bankruptcy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. For making it clear that Congress would act on energy and climate as soon as the White House got out of the way.

James Hanson. The NASA climate scientist who managed to keep open the flow of scientific knowledge on the growing climate crisis, even when the Bush administration tried to shut him down.

Senate Majority/Minority Leader Harry Reid. Reid's finest moment came in the Minority, when he stood up to Bush's attempt to pack the federal judiciary.

Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri. The Nobel Academy recognized their achievement; the rest of us are in their debt.

Laurie David. The Hollywood environmentalist who conceived that a movie about a famously formal politician delivering a slideshow could win an Academy Award.

Green tech entrepreneurs. For getting us ready for the 21st century.

Henry Waxman. For holding the Bush administration's feet to the fire for the past two years, and laying the groundwork for the House of Representatives to deliver on President-elect Obama's agenda.

The federal judiciary. For remembering that, as James Madison intended, they took an oath of office to the Constitution, not the President of the United States or the Vice-President.

Democracy. For giving us Barack Obama.

Chicago -- Faced with an increasingly severe economic crisis, President-elect Obama made clear Saturday that his immediate economic-stimulus platform -- the first leg in his green energy-economy stool -- will be even larger and more ambitious than previously pledged. This morning Austan Goolsbee, one of his top economic advisors, repeated that Obama would be spending far more than the $175 billion he had previously promised.

This, I think, answers a key question (would Obama listen to the voices saying that he should move more cautiously because of the economy?) with a decisive "no." Because clean energy is a centerpiece of the stimulus package, it also means that Obama is ignoring those who argue that energy reform should wait until there is an economic recovery. Clearly, he is relying on clean energy to help drive the recovery, whatever contrarian voices like The Economist might say.

Last week, in Washington, I had several meetings with officials from the Obama transition -- some old friends, some new. I was struck by the singular clarity they all seemed to have about what they were doing and about what their priorities and limits were -- and by how often those priorities and limits were attributed to directly to Obama. "The President-elect has made clear...." was probably the single most common response to a tough question. This is a huge contrast to the free-form, ad hoc, and often simply confusing atmosphere that characterized the Carter and Clinton transitions  (and, based on descriptions I've read, of Franklin's Roosevelt's launch of the New Deal, for that matter).

The Obama team seems to be bringing to governing the singular discipline that characterized their campaign -- and now it;s becoming clearer that the insistence on clarity and focus comes directly from the top. It's about the only reassuring thing you can find on the landscape right now -- so I'm glad it's there.