I don't know why conservatives think it's smart to undersell global warming. But making my way through Zachary Roth's utter ownage of George Will's latest, I thought about this gem from the campaign. These guys don't get it. Even the Market for Stoopid is touched by the Recession. In fact, since stoopid is a luxury, it's likely to get hit the hardest.
On another note, this clip reminds me of that great Chris Rock bit about how niggers love to not know--which is weird, and yet also, quite beautiful.
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ahh.. election season PWNAGE. I think I've had enough of election season '08 to last me a lifetime, but that bit right there is both fun to watch and rather representative. I was super disappointed that there was no serious opposition to candidate Obama because I thought we all would have benefited so much from more real, honest debate on the issues and how to deal with them - and you can tell that Team Obama were actually preparing for that, and were more than once left scratching their heads, like: 'really.... that's their argument? for the presidency? are they even trying?' It's like bringing a spatula to a gunfight. Even staunch twice-Bush-voting Republican friends of mine (who are now reconsidering that political affiliation) were downright embarrassed.
Wow, it sounds so much more fun now that the election is over and my anger at their stupidity has receded somehow. Man, was Obama genuinely having some serious fun. You can tell it in his voice. Didn't get it as much back then...
George F. Will gives pseudo-intellectuals a bad name.
I continue to believe that was one of the crucial media moments of the campaign. Not so much because it was played over and over, but because of the whole Gore-Kerry momentum hat it stopped. Did anyone, I mean ANYONE, play up the little tire gauge gimmick again? Did Rush Limbaugh continue to make fun of that? Hannity?
No. You know why? Because they know they got their ass handed to them. Gore and Kerry would have chided the GOP for being ignorant. Sadly, that just plays into the GOP handbook of "Look at the elitist making fun of us good old boys." But Obama hit him where it hurt-- it's not ignorance, but pride that should be mocked. That's something country boys can mock too- why would you be proud of not knowing how your truck's engine worked? Obama also knew he had the NASCAR offical endorsement of the idea, which further out-Bubba'ed the blusterers.
There are few times when the GOP gets hit in the mouth and shuts up. This was one.
The Chris Rock bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7b2oCYgfik
The part Ta's talking about starts around 2:45.
God is George Will insidious. He has a great disguise as a "reasonable" conservative - his sartorial choices even scream "level-headed Connecticut Republican Senator from the '60s."
On top of that, 3/4 of the columns he writes are defenses of reasonable Republican positions. (Too generous?) But then I read one of these sops to the Base and I recall what my more progressive friends are talking about when they talk about George F-ing Will.
To paraphrase Kramer on GFW, "He's an attractive man. But no, no I don't find him all that bright."
‘why conservatives think it's smart to undersell global warming.’
I think it’s because they’re a mouthpiece for the ‘develpoment’ industry.
This is purely about identity politics. Conservatives are in a world of trouble. For the most part the environment and global climate change have over the past three decades been championed by the left. If all this brouhaha about planet climate change is true, why then along with our standing in the world, our economy, our failing health care system, our dependence on foreign oil, an impending world wide catastophe of epochal proportions may be laid at their feet. How will they ever win an election if people actually believe that? Just as it is far easier for Republicans to keep on saying cut taxes, fight wars, and forget everything else than to cop to the reality that their tax, trade, jobs, health care, and foreign policies have led us to this sorry state of affairs, it is far less threatening to their desire for hegemony than to come to grips with the idea that that pompous Al Gore was onto something they weren't for decades or that Jimmy Carter warning us about our energy policy way back when was far more prescient than their missing light bulb point of view initiated by Ronald Reagan and James Watt.
As Watson says. The GOP deny global warming because they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of industries for whom the status quo is a money maker. That means, primarily, the oil industry and various big polluters. Addressing global warming means using less oil and cleaning up our mess, and these companies don't want that. They are too invested in profiting off the status quo, so they are fighting change. And the GOP is their mouth piece.