Your Head Will Explode

[FourScore]

Your Head Will Explode
by Turkana
Fri Dec 11, 2009 at 04:24:54 PM PST

To corporate media hacks, there are no objective facts. Because they are incapable of either researching or comprehending what can be demonstrably proved, they dumb down all issues to mere partisan controversies. There is no scientific method. There are no historical contexts. There are two sides to every story, even when there really aren't. Everything can be a legitimate source of bickering.

It's not just juvenile, and it's not just unprofessional; it is, in fact, dangerous. If a prominent Republican went flat-earther, Wolf Blitzer, David Broder and their ilk would reliably report on the new controversy over the shape of the earth. Andrea Mitchell just proved her credentials as an upstanding member of this upsidedown cult of unreality. On the eve of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, she interviewed Al Gore. Did she ask him about the science of climate change? Did she ask him about the politics? Did she ask him if the politics was dangerous, given the science? Of course not. As reported by Steve Benen:

This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021380.php

Let's think about that, for a moment. Al Gore may be an imperfect messenger, but his understanding of climate change is steeped in science. He's written books about it. Books that he not only read, but actually wrote. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work explaining climate change and trying to get the world to deal with it. In contrast, Sarah Palin has no understanding of climate change, whatsoever. Not only does she not understand the science of climate change, she doesn't appear to understand science. Nothing in her resume credibly qualifies her to discuss climate change. To be kind, one could say that her best and most consistent professional qualification is that of a quitter. She's not very good at it, but she does have plenty of experience.

But even more surreal is the context of Mitchell's question. A supposedly serious supposed journalist asks a Nobel Prize winning expert what he thinks of the nitwit ramblings of an ignorant anti-intellectual that were posted to a Facebook page? Has the corporate media really dumbed itself that far down?

Apparently without laughing in her face or being stupefied into horrified silence, Gore gave Mitchell a succinct response:

"Well, you know, the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality," Gore explained. "After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this?"

Has Mitchell ever bothered to read about or report on such a minor inconvenient truth? Of course not. That would require activating her synapses. It's much easier simply to read a blurb on Facebook, and pretend that she's a serious person asking serious question of other serious people.

Digby http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/oh-snap-by-digby-that-sarah-palin-is.html also read Palin's Facebook page, and her response is a very easy lesson in how a thinking person responds to a public idiot like Palin. Palin attempts to engage Gore with all the wit and wisdom of a very inane junior high school kid. She attempts to turn Gore's criticism of climate deniers by using the same words to criticize Gore for denying the sham scandal concocted out of deliberate misreadings of stolen emails. And then digby engages in an act of intelligence. She links to a page that thoroughly debunks the sham scandal.

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://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/09/climate-gate-timeline/

Mitchell, of course, likely would have attempted to paint the debunked scandal as a legitimate issue. Mitchell likely wouldn't have made the effort to research the facts, to think them through, and to report objectively Al Gorewhat is so easily verify. To Mitchell, every argument has two legitimate sides. Because making the effort to figure out if one actually is right requires effort. And thought. And responsibility. And professionalism. Something Mitchell wouldn't understand. Something digby dashes off effortlessly. Because digby is the professional Mitchell only pretends to be. And because understanding that climate change is real and that the concocted scandal is a sham doesn't take a lot of effort. To anyone willing to make such an effort, and capable of understanding easily explicable facts.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/11/19215/665