Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sen. Inhofe Preaches to the Converted at Global Warming Conference

Sooners who keep track of their legislators will be interested to know that Sen. Jim Inhofe is speaking this weekend at a climate conference in Chicago.

Of course, the event is what historian Daniel Boorstin once called a pseudo-event; that is, a made-for-the-media event designed to spread the message of its sponsor. In other words, propaganda.

In this case, the sponsor is the Heartland Institute, a conservative, free-market outfit that is challenging the whole global warming, climate change idea.

Given this mission, Inhofe is an ideal candidate, a back-bencher with little credibility on global warming or anything else. Naturally, he's one of the featured speakers at the conference.

Moreover, the conference is loaded with others of a similar persuasion, weathermen and deniers from such organizations as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and—surprise!—the Heartland Institute itself.

With a lineup this insular and one-dimensional, it's unlikely that anything of substance will come out of the Chicago conference.

But that's the whole point of the shindig—sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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