POISONED WATERS! Rising temperatures threaten our world—and Bjorn Lomborg has poisoned our discourse: // link // print // previous // next //
THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2007
ONE DEAN LEFT BEHIND: Like many other major pundits, David Broder is almost utterly clueless about public schooling. In today’s Post, he rails against a Republican proposal to change No Child Left Behind. “[T]he remedy they are recommending seems drastic,” Broder says, “and the abandonment of the first serious national effort to raise standards in the schools would be disastrous.” Then, the Dean types this:
BRODER (3/22/07): Under the Republican proposal, states could, at their own initiative, opt out of the law's requirements while continuing to receive their share of the billions the federal government invests in elementary and secondary schools. To measure progress in the schools, states could use their own standards.But states already “use their own standards” when measuring progress under NCLB. Under the current system, each state devises its own state-wide tests of “proficiency” in several subjects; the various states can make these tests as easy or as hard as they like. For ourselves, we like the fact that NCLB requires testing and reporting; we don’t like a lot of the tests, and we don’t like the uses to which they are put. But Broder can’t even seem to describe how the present system works—although, for some reason, he thinks he knows which changes would be “disastrous.”
We’re going to postpone this topic till next week. Last week, Kevin Drum (and others) had interesting posts about these proposed NCLB revisions; we think this topic deserves some discussion. As we have said: There’s no topic smart liberals understand less than the topic of low-income schooling. If Bjorn Lomborg would stop spreading poison among us, we might find some time for this topic.
POISONED WATERS: Yesterday, our entire staff piled into the van and drove at moderate speed to DC, where they saw their Uncle Albert Gore testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. (He had appeared before a joint House committee that morning.) Personal reaction? It turned out to be one of the most disturbing days in our nine years of posting THE HOWLER.
Gore was superb—as were a good many members of the House and the Senate, including a number of Republicans. At times—as when Gore interacted with veteran Texas Republican congressman Ralph Hall—the colloquy seemed straight outta Homer. But then, we marveled at the thoroughly bizarre performance by Oklahoma senator James Inhofe, who questioned Gore in such a strange way that we found ourselves wondering (no hyperbole intended) if he has mental or emotional problems. Committee chair Barbara Boxer was forced to reason with Inhofe as you would deal with a young, troubled child—and Gore did something similar. "I'm sitting here trying to think what I can do or say that might make it possible to reach out to you," he softly said to Inhofe. "I'm serious about this. We've got a mutual friend in [evangelical leader] Doug Coe. I'd love to have breakfast with you. Just the three of us without cameras and lights and tell you why I feel so strongly about this.” In today’s Post, Dana Milbank captures one small part of Inhofe’s disordered performance:
MILBANK (3/22/07): Inhofe informed Gore that scientists are "radically at odds with your claims." Displaying a photograph of icicles in Buffalo, Inhofe demanded: "How come you guys never seem to notice it when it gets cold?”Could Inhofe possibly be this stupid? Because ice still forms during Buffalo’s winters, he says he has trouble believing in warming. But no single excerpt or video clip could do justice to Inhofe’s disordered conduct. We suggest that you watch his full Q-and-A on the tape now posted at C-SPAN. (His segment starts 13 minutes in.) Of course, Missouri’s Kit Bond was little better. There are some very marginal people holding down seats in the Senate.
But our sense of disturbance only took shape when we returned to our sprawling campus and watched Hannity & Colmes. The program’s first segment dealt with Gore’s congressional sessions; the first guest was none other than “Danish statistician” Bjorn Lomborg, who recently helped the New York Times’ William Broad produce his astoundingly bungled report on Gore and global warming (links below). Yesterday afternoon, Lomborg was the GOP’s “rebuttal” witness in a second session of the House committees. Hours later, he went on Fox. And omigod! He said it again:
LOMBORG (3/21/07): Basically, Al Gore goes out and tells us wildly exaggerated stories about what's going to happen. Probably the most famous clip is where he tells us, essentially, that sea levels are going to rise about 20 feet, which is a far cry from what the U.N. climate panel is telling us, which is one foot. And it's important, because one is a problem—the one foot—but 20 feet would be catastrophe.As he did in the New York Sun last month, Lomborg played a savage game of scientific apples-and-oranges, accusing Gore of “wild exaggeration” in the process. The UN said sea levels might rise one foot—but Gore said twenty feet, Lomborg railed!
Of course, as we’ve noted, Gore was talking about what will happen if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets break away. By contrast, the UN report was predicting future sea levels if the ice sheets don’t break off. (For the record, the UN report said that sea levels may rise by as much as 23 inches if the ice sheets remain intact.) Lomborg’s presentation is baldly deceptive—a bald-faced scam on the American public. And no, it really doesn’t make sense to think Lomborg doesn’t know this.
So there was Lomborg, committing a crime against your nation’s voters. But our sense of disturbance really took shape in the moments after his latest deception. Although the groaning problem with Lomborg’s claim has been discussed at an array of web sites, Alan Colmes made no attempt to contradict his grossly misleading statement. Ditto Jon Coifman (the Natural Resources Defense Council), who was there to provide fairness-and-balance. (We’ll post their “responses” tomorrow.)
Indeed, Lomborg’s bald deception now rules discussion of this topic. In early February, he presented his utterly bogus claim in the pages of the New York Sun, where it would have done minimal damage. But last week, the New York Times’ William Broad made a fateful decision; he wanted this nonsense in his paper too. So Broad used Lomborg’s apples-for-oranges in his “Science Times” report about Gore. By yesterday, the Dane’s poisoned fruit was being cited all over your struggling nation.
Yep! Republican crackpots cited Lomborg’s claim at both congressional hearings. Last night, Hannity dragged Lomborg onto the air—and Colmes was too dumb (or well-paid) to rebut what he said. And omigod! When Gore was discussed on Special Report, here’s how things got started:
BRIT HUME (3/21/07): And now some analytical observations about His Eminency [Gore] from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; and Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine.Broad’s piece has become the sacred text for those who would call Gore “a wild exaggerator.” Exhibit A? It’s Lomborg’s fruity claim about that UN report.
What to make of Mr. Gore, his performance today, what it tells us on this issue, and what it tells us, perhaps about him and his intentions?
BARNES: You know Brit, I'm not sure whether the earth has a fever, but Al Gore has a fever, that's for sure. He is a wild exaggerator. For instance, this U.N. panel that says that over the rest of the century the sea level, because of global warming, will rise 23 inches, Al Gore talks about 20 feet. There's a big difference there.
And of course, people like Gore claim there's a scientific consensus. We saw that piece in the New York Times last week, that even Mort read, that showed there's no scientific consensus.
As we said last week, there’s nothing complex or confusing about this. Gore was talking about one possibility; the UN report was discussing another. Indeed, the New York Times had explained this bone-simple distinction in its original, front-page report about the UN presentation. But three days later, Lomborg placed his stink-bomb in the Sun—and soon, Broad stole it away for the Times. It’s now the club that is used to bash Gore by those who would say that he “has a fever.” It’s repeated by every liar and hack—and people like Colmes and Coifman are too inept (or compliant) to stand up and refute it.
Tomorrow, we’ll continue to look at this ongoing problem—and we do so for a reason. In his testimony, Gore said that our planet’s natural systems are under a devastating, ongoing attack. But for at least the past fifteen years, our public discourse has been under attack, to the point where it’s no longer possible to have the simplest fact-based discussion. At this point, it makes no sense to think that Lomborg doesn’t know what he’s doing; for reasons only he can explain, he’s pouring poison into our discourse. But readers, what explains the ongoing failure of liberals and Dems to respond to these attacks? What explains the way this poison persists, fifteen years after inception?
TOMORROW: Presumably, Lomborg is lying. But how about Broad? And his editor? And Kondracke? And Colmes? At THE HOWLER, we do plan to ask.
VISIT OUR INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: We did five posts on Broad’s report; see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/20/07, with links to all prior reports.
For our discussion of Lomborg, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/19/07. Lomborg is "the prime example in our time of someone who distorts statistics and statements to meet his own political end," said Peter Raven, chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Raven made that statement in 2002—but so what? Today, Lomborg rules your discourse.