Well, I was waiting for Ripclawe to show off his scientific muscle, but since he's not taking the bait, I'll go ahead and make my point.
The only way that the Sun transmits energy to Earth is through radiation. "Burning hotter" would only (potentially) change the distribution of the frequencies emitted, not the total energy. "Increased brightness" would be synonymous with "increased energy output," and, from the point of view of the Earth, "increased intensity of solar radiation."
My point is that an increase in solar radiation of the magnitude required to account for global warming would have some fairly profound and obvious consequences -- namely, that we'd all be sunburnt to hell. Since that isn't the case, this theory is clearly a red herring.
As scola and xsarien pointed out, conservatives would love nothing more than to theorize global warming away to justify the continued -- and ever-increasing -- use of fossil fuels. Although there are almost certainly natural processes influencing global climate, you simply cannot ignore the impact that we as a civilization have on the environment -- and in particular, WESTERN civilization.