Mike Luckovich obviously didn't see this article, so in case you missed it too:

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close...The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
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Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Hysteria was rife as well with headlines such as: "Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change" and "Arctic Ice in 'Death Spiral,' Is Near Record Low."

Back to DailyTech:

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.

Let's look at the facts, or I suppose "claim," as any fact which doesn't support the more rabid environmentalist agenda is called, "the polar bear population has more than doubled since the 1960s, currently between 20,000 and 25,000, up from 8,000 to 10,000."

This number is not disputed, merely dismissed, by the climate change crowd, including one Dr. Derocher:

We are sure the populations were being negatively affected by excess harvest (e.g., aircraft hunting, ship hunting, self-killing guns, traps, and no harvest limits). The harvest levels were huge and growing. The resulting low numbers of bears were due only to excess harvest but, again, it was simply a guess as to the number of bears.

Derocher qualifies the number with (my italics): "If I thought that there were more bears now than 50 years ago and a reasonable basis to assume this would not change, then no worries. This is not the case."  What would be a "reasonable basis" to expect change be for Dr. Derocher: "You can distort the issue any way you so desire. At the end of the day, the sea ice is disappearing."

Continuing on, Derocher writes: "Comparing declines caused by harvest followed by recovery from harvest controls to declines from loss of habitat and climate warming are apples and oranges. Ignorant people write ignorant things."  I suppose Derocher counts Bjorn Lomborg, Director of Denmark's National Environmental Assessment Institute, among the ignorant as he told an audience at the Chamber in June: "If every nation in the world complied with Kyoto, by 2100, we would save one polar bear, whereas at the same time, we kill between 300 to 500 polar bears a year hunting."

Now I don't want to try and "distort the issue", so you can decide which argument holds frozen water.