Paging Obama’s new environmental team: Fred Barnes has some crucial new information about global warming — it’s not man-made, apparently!
Problem is, Barnes won’t tell us how he knows that — but maybe he’ll tell you.
Check out this passage from Barnes’ latest column for the Weekly Standard:
Democrats couldn’t hide their self-consciousness about the excesses of their own bill. Supporters made few TV appearances to defend it and rarely talked about specific spending items. Obama sounded like Al Gore on global warming. The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering. (our itals.)
We hadn’t heard anything lately about the case for man-made global warming falling apart. In fact, just the opposite. So we called Barnes and asked him what he was referring to.
At first, he cited the fact that it’s been cold lately.
Perhaps sensing this was less than convincing, Barnes then asserted that there had been a “cooling spell” in recent years. “Haven’t you noticed?” he asked.
Asked for firmer evidence of such cooling, Barnes demurred, telling TPMmuckraker he was too busy to track it down.
We pressed Barnes again: surely he could tell us where he had found this vital new information, which could upend the current debate over how to address global warming.
In response, Barnes said only that he knew where he had found it, but would not tell us, apparently as a matter of principle. “I’m not going to do your research for you,” he eventually said, before hurriedly ending the call.
So we came up empty. Let’s hope the Obama policy-makers have more luck getting this out of Barnes — after all, our future could depend on it.