Republicans in U.S. face backlash for embracing climate science – ‘Andrew Breitbart called for the assassination of climate scientist Dr. James Hansen’
By D. R. Tucker
4 February 2014 (Coffee Party USA) – I appreciate your courage in having Mr. Inglis on The Matt Lewis Show — and I do mean courage, since I recognize that it’s far easier to ridicule Inglis as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) than it is to engage with his arguments. You did the latter, and for that, you’ve earned some of my respect. I am a Massachusetts resident and former Republican; I was a member of the party from 1996 to 2011, and voted for Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain, as well as Republican candidates on the state level. I also wrote for the “Right Angle” blog on Human Events Online from January 2006 to March 2009, and hosted a program on Blog Talk Radio from August 2009 to June 2010, where I had the honor of interviewing Dinesh D’Souza, David Horowitz, John Derbyshire, Jerome Corsi, Richard Brookhiser, Steven Hayward, Jason Mattera, Mark Thiessen and Victor Davis Hanson, among others. I decided to leave the GOP and become an independent largely because I grew sick and tired of the “RINO-hunting” in the party; part of that “RINO-hunting” involved the ostracism of Republicans who disagreed with Sen. James Inhofe on climate change. I felt that the GOP should be broad enough to encompass the views of both Sen. Inhofe and Rep. Inglis; I ended up learning, in a very vicious fashion, that this particular viewpoint would not be tolerated in the party. Speaking of vicious fashions, I could not help noting, at the outset of the clip, the intro from the late Andrew Breitbart. As I’m sure you know, in 2009 Breitbart called for the assassination of climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, and the assassination of investigative journalist Brad Friedman. I bring this up because you and Mr. Inglis made the point that tactical and rhetorical errors on the part of climate activists and “the environmental left” constituted part of the political problem blocking action on climate change. Even if I were to concede that point, I cannot forget that there is another part of the political problem blocking action on climate change: the 26-year-plus effort by what David Frum once called the “conservative-entertainment complex” to declare climate change a hoax and to rhetorically bludgeon anyone who suggests that the problem needs attention, including climate scientists such as Hansen, Ben Santer, Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, and Kerry Emanuel. Having myself been on the receiving end of these sorts of right-wing rhetorical assaults for merely suggesting that climate change is not a hoax, I can’t let the other players in this particular game off the hook. Having said that, if conservatives and Republicans are finally willing to come to the table with policy responses, as Inglis does, instead of screaming “Alarmist!”, “Warmist!” and (if you’re a Republican) “Moderate!” and “Squish!”, then so much the better, In a 2011 Commentary magazine post, Peter Wehner nailed it from a non-irrational conservative perspective: “Our task is to win the debate on the merits, to employ, as best we can, honest and credible arguments in order to ascertain the reality of things. And if the science shows that Earth is warming and that humans have played a role in that, then we need to accept it, even if that puts us on the same side with some individuals we don’t find particularly appealing. What matters is where the truth lies, not the company we find ourselves in… [more]
