No, we’re not talking about the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) efforts to push radically conservative corporative legislation through state legislative bodies (such as ALEC re climate change) but Alec Baldwin. Perhaps sparked by global warming denier Jim Inhofe’s recent appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, Baldwin launched a series of tweets attacking Inhofe:
- Is there a bigger oil whore alive than Jim Inhofe?
- Is there a bigger climate change denier than Jim Inhofe? (Retweeted response to first tweet.)
- We have to get rid of Inhofe in 2014 … he’ll be 79
- We need to have Inhofe retire to a solar-powered gay bar.
- Oil Whore Jim Inhofe has betrayed every man and woman who lost their livelihood on the Gulf due to BP‘s overwhelming negligence…
- I attack Inhofe because he is a climate change denier.
More generally, Baldwin’s perspective re the impact of the RWSM on his twitter feed:
For whatever reason, I never cease to be amazed by the distortions of the right wing trash that keeps stopping by here.
Baldwin’s emails are creating a form of backlash on twitter and elsewhere.
One commentator (Jason Shenkel) specifically complained about Baldwin’s use of the term “whore”:
Your comment is offensive to sex workers. Sex workers do not SELL US OUT the way Inhofe does
Not all agreed with Shenkel’s perspective. On Twitter, for example, one respondant asked whether Limbaugh was embarassed by his nopology over Fluke (the days and days of ranting about Sandra Fluke) after Baldwin’s tweeted that Inhofe was an “oil whore”. Baldwin’s response to that:
- Fluke isn’t a slut and Inhofe is an Oil Whore. Y’see?
James Inhofe’s spokesperson has responded with anger to Baldwin’s comments.
“These kind of outrageous statements made recently on Twitter by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Alec Baldwin stand in stark contrast to the civil debate Sen. Inhofe had with Rachel Maddow last week,”
In that interview, Maddow sought to deal directly with Inhofe while remaining utterly civil in the face of Inhofe’s misrepresentation and deceptions. Note that, in that interview, Senator Inhofe essentially stated that the reason he turned to an anti-science stance was economic — that he was listening to climate scientists until he became (falsely) convinced that mitigating climate change would cost too much.
Also, to be clear, Senator Inhofe has been consistently in calling the vast majority of the global scientific community as engaged in a (basically criminal) conspiracy to foist a “hoax” on humanity. While Inhofe rejects the concept that humanity is driving climate change (often even asserting that there isn’t Global Warming), humanity’s top scientific insitutions and scientific societies — with the partial exception of the obviously unbiased American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) — are unanimous in the opinion that there is global warming and that humanity is a major driving factor in that warming. Hmmm … who to trust, Senator James Inhofe or the Royal Academy of Sciences and the National Academies of Science and …
A question to ponder:
Does Baldwin — with his 776,310 twitter followers — help the debate via his impassioned notes or does this create a door for Senator Inhofe to foster sympathy in diverting attention from his efforts to spread anti-science syndrome and imperil the nation’s future though delaying efforts to mitigate climate change and avert catastrophic climate chaos?
NOTES:
Speaking of prostitutes, big oil’s top call girl Sen Inhofe wants to kill fuel economy backed by automakers, small biz, enviros, & consumers
In his interview with Maddow, Inhofe spoke of his list of 1000s of scientists … on this misdirection and truthiness, see (for example):
- Inhofian Reporting: Peerless work?
- Debunking Inhofe’s 413 …
- Revisiting Inhofian Deception
- Scientific Inquiry concludes: Inhofe List “Not credible …”
Relevant material re Inhofe’s denial strategy (for example):
- Global Warming Deniers and Their Proven Strategy of Doubt
- Global Warming Denial Machine
- A Response to Climate Change Denialism
RE Twitter
2 responses so far ↓
1 Gail Zawacki // Mar 19, 2012 at 2:08 pm
It’s crude but it’s time the REAL whores and sluts are named. Which, I’m not sure whether I should be proud or ashamed to say, is exactly what I did when I wrote Something is Rotten at the EPA:
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/03/something-is-rotten-at-epa.html
It’s especially revolting when scientists who obviously know better squander their privileged education to rake in money from corporations.
2 Alec Baldwin Says Sen. James Inhofe is an "Oil Whore", Should "Retire to a Solar-Powered Gay Bar" // Mar 20, 2012 at 1:29 am
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