(Diarist's note: Satire.)
WASHINGTON — A now-abandoned Republican Party memo leaked to a blogger by a "disgusted strategist" who agreed to be quoted on condition of anonymity urged party members to push to add lunar climate data to any argument regarding global warming.
The desire was to "lower the warming temperatures the scientific community has been pushing by introducing equally scientific data that blunts the warming of the last few decades and especially to suggest scientifically that predictions of ice caps melting are overblown," according to the memo.
"They're seeing the writing on the wall," the strategist said in an e-mail. "People aren't buying the party's refusal to address this critical issue. But the party is beholden to the gas and coal companies -- to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Exxon, Shell, all of those guys are fighting tooth and nail to keep their profits pouring in, and the political reality of global warming is really threatening that now."
But when a GOP staffer with a background in astronomy was asked to compile data to show what new global warming calculations might look like, the result was so obviously concocted that the room broke out in a rare moment of laughter.
GOP spokesman Adam Baldwin said he knew of no such memo. "I think there's plenty of doubt even within the scientific community as regards so-called climate change, so there's no need to falsify evidence as regards what is clearly a Democrat-invented notion."
"Apparently," the strategist stated in the e-mail, "the moon's temperature fluctuates to make global warming look like it doesn't exist. The staffer got the data and then tried to her boss the results would not favor the party. No dice. The representative in question as much as accused the staffer of incompetence and lying.
"But rather than buckling under this pressure, this woman collected herself and put together a scientifically scathing report that had us laughing the representative out of the meeting for a 'family emergency.'
"The report stated that including the moon's temperature fluctuations would lower the mean temperature on the Earth by 67 degrees because the moon's temperature goes from about -387 (Fahrenheit) to 253 (Fahrenheit). The aide said she believed most Democrats and scientists brought in to testify about the issue would see a problem with the report and that the 'Party of No' would run the risk of becoming the 'Party of Know Nothings.'"
The Know Nothings were an anti-immigrant, anti-alcohol, pro-religion party active from about 1845 to 1860. Remnants of the party's anti-slavery wing joined with a nascent Republican Party before the Civil War. The party's lone presidential ticket, Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson, lost in 1856 to Democratic Party nominee Franklin Pierce.
"The representative apparently hadn't read the report, or didn't know what the aide was referring to, because he thought his aide had written 'No Nothing.' So he asked her, 'What is a double negative doing in a congressional report?' And when a senior (GOP) strategist showed him where it said 'Know Nothing,' his face got bright red and he said he had a family emergency to tend to.
"No, we never found out what it was."
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Bonus coverage (no room in title):
I'm going to try, and maybe maintain as a serious effort, playing journalist and politician in a diary once a week. This means asking that politician questions as a journalist (a good journalist, not a "Why don't you wear a flag lapel pin?" journalist) and answering them as a politician.
First up, since his style is just so easy to mimic, is our beloved president.
So.
Post a question as a comment. Bear in mind that things like "Do you like your job?" "Do you think Mars is hollow?" and other wastes of time will either not get picked or ... I'll do something fun with them.
I probably won't pick every question, and I probably will include questions that weren't submitted (my diary, natch). But I hope it'll be a fun exercise and a fun read.