Sarah Palin is just a little bit too quick for that old plodder Al Gore.

[kpete]

That Sarah Palin is just a little bit too quick for that old plodder Al Gore. From her Facebook page:

Former Vice President Gore also claimed today that the scientific community has worked on this issue for 20 years, and therefore it is settled science. Well, the Climategate scandal involves the leading experts in this field, and if Climategate is proof of the larger method used over the past 20 years, then Vice President Gore seriously needs to consider that their findings are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.

.............................

In truth, the "Climategate" scandal doesn't really exist. TP has put together an essential primer on how the scandal was manufactured. It's just as one might have expected.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/oh-snap-by-digby-that-sarah-palin-is.html

An essential primer on how the scandal was manufactured. It's just as one might have expected.

A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’

In mid-November, thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit webmail server — a top climate research center in the United Kingdom — were hacked and dumped on a Russian web server. Polluter-funded climate skeptics, along with their allies in conservative media and the Republican Party, sifted through the e-mails, and quickly cherry picked quotes to falsely accuse climate scientists of concocting climate change science out of whole cloth. The skeptics also propelled the story, dubbed “Climategate,” to the cover of the New York Times and newspapers across the globe. According to a Nexis news search, the Climategate story has been reported at least 325 times in the American press alone.

While the hacked e-mails may reveal that scientists might not have nice things to say about climate change deniers at times, they do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?

The methods for the right-wing political hit machine were honed during the Clinton years. Columnist and language-guru William Safire, a former aide to actual Watergate crook President Nixon, attached “-gate” to any minor post-Nixon incident as a “rhetorical legerdemain” intended “to establish moral equivalence.” (See phony manufactured scandals “Travelgate,” “Whitewatergate,” etc.) A right-wing echo chamber — including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, and the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tanks — would then blare the scandal incessantly, regardless of the truth. But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.

One of the most successful coups for right-wing hit men was the “SwiftBoat” campaign, a well financed effort orchestrated by lobbyists and Bush allies to smear Sen. John Kerry’s (D-MA) war record. But “Climategate” is no different, with many of the same conservatives actors playing their respective roles:

way more stuff & lots of links for ammo:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/09/climate-gate-timeline/

[TwilightGardener]

1. I'm always intrigued at how she becomes an instant expert on

just about everything: foreign affairs, war, science, economy...who feeds her her lines?

[malaise]

4. Amazing isn't it

This absolutely stupid woman is an expert on everything. :puke:

[bdamomma]

6. the press is just obsessed with her,

it will be a sad day if she runs for President, the press keeps her in the headlines, for what?

[Bitwit1234]

7. That is what flabbergast me...how in the hell can stupid be so

knowledgeable. We should set her up in a lab with all those little wires and buttons and let her give the world all the answers to everything. then we wouldn't need computers.

[Kingofalldems]

2. And they are all over LBN

Very discouraging.

[blm]

3. It ONLY happens because a COMPLICIT MEDIA actively participates in promoting the lies and smears

while downplaying or muting the truth.

Happened to Dan Rather.

Happened to ACORN story, too.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Of Course This Is Astroturfed...

A good part of it is the upcoming Cap and Trade fiasco that is sure to happen in the Senate. If you saw misinformation and lobbyist influence on a bill with healthcare, just wait til this one comes up; and the corporates aren't wasting any time.

For over 30 years, the GOOP and its corporate puppetmasters have tried to discredit climate change to a point where it's a major article of faith. A "good" rushpublican can't believe that man affects the climate as it not only doesn't jive with the fundie rhetoric the party uses to pander to its coven but also gives cover for the corporates who want to pilage and exploit and use government to protect their profits and assets. A nice little arrangement that makes this country one of the few to recognize the obvious problems nearly 200 years of heavy industrialization has done to this planet. It's embarassing...

[Bitwit1234]

8. IDEA

what I posted...why doesn't some one who can photo shop do this, picture her in a room with all the wires etc and the caption "Ask me how to solve everything, I am the Wizard of OZ.