This very brief essay that might be about hypocrisy. Or it might be that that McPalin campaign is giving you and me and all the other people who care about Global Warming a raised middle digit. You decide.
These are polar bears:
In May, 2008, before she was a VP candidate, the Great Huntress decided that polar bears shouldn’t be on the endangered species list, where Bushco had put them. The Anchorage Daily News wrote:
The State of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday.
She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state’s northern and northwestern coasts.
Palin argued there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.
Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, Palin said.
The announcement drew a strong response from the primary author of the listing petition.
“She’s either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Alaska deserves better.”
Put simply, Palin is a hard-core global warming denier:
Q: What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
A: A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
But you already knew all of that. You’ve already ranted and banged on the table about this and cursed a blue streak at the screens on your television and monitor. This is nothing new.
Then, last night, on Keith, I thought I saw Sarah Palin wearing on her right lapel a polar bear pin. Just like this:
I was paying special attention, because I wanted to see whether she was still wearing the RNC purchased and soon to be donated to charity designer threads. Normally, I don’t pay much attention. Last night I was paying attention because I wanted to see if she had gotten, well, more frumpy. That didn’t happen. To put it mildly, I was surprised by the pin. Maybe I’m easily surprised.
There is no really satisfactory explanation for this. Are they hypocrites of the first degree? Is the McPalin campaign that clueless? Maybe after the last eight years, they think cluelessness, for which they have voted 90% of the time, is a qualification for running the nation. But then I had a darker thought. Maybe she’s wearing the pin to “energize the base,” and it’s a gigantic FU to anyone who cares about the environment.
You choose. Either way, I wish McPalin would be gone.