Comparing Peter Bronson to a sane person

When is the Enquirer going to wake up, see that Peter Bronson is irrelevant, and fire him? Many of his commentaries lack any kind of original thought, and merely crib what other people are writing on the Internet. He is a knee-jerk reactionary, frothing at the mouth any time a Democrat has any success.

Read his hateful diatribe against Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The column is based on a well-publicized case in England, where a judge found that because there are a factual errors in Gore's global-warming movie "An Inconvenient Truth," teachers must show it with accompanying "guidance" on the relevant science.

Bronson refers to an article in the London Evening Standard about the case. See the article here. Bronson writes:

When the British government decided to use it (the film) to educate children about global warming, school official Stewart Dimmock filed a lawsuit claiming that Gore's movie was inaccurate political "brainwashing" and "sentimental mush," according to the London Evening Standard. Last week, the High Court agreed. A judge ruled that Gore's film is "alarmist and exaggerated," and must have warnings to point out nine scientific errors.

The actual paragraphs from the Evening Standard story reads this way:

Describing the documentary as 'a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film', Mr Justice Burton said it was built round the 'charismatic presence' of the ex vice president 'whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming'.

But he said it might be necessary for the Government to make clear to teaching staff that some of Mr Gore's views were not supported or promoted by the Government, and there was 'a view to the contrary'.

Agreeing that Mr Gore's film was 'broadly accurate' on the subject of climate change, he found that errors had arisen in 'the context of alarmism and exaggeration'.

As you can see, Bronson first leaves out the line that the judge found the film "broadly accurate," and then misquotes the line "the context of alarmism and exaggeration" as "alarmist and exaggerated."

Bronson won't acknowledge that the judge found the movie essentially accurate, or that scientists as well generally agree that Gore got the basic science right. Read this and this. And while pointing out factual errors in the movie, Bronson sidesteps the question of whether global warming is real. That's because that would require some real thinking; it's much easier, I suppose, to simply apply one's prejudices and make jokes.

Bronson misses the point that while something may contain inaccuracies, that doesn't always mean the whole is inaccurate. He also misses the point that if you're going to fault somebody for accuracy, your argument had better be pristine. And, somebody at the Enquirer needs to ask Bronson some hard questions before anything he writes is published.

What really bothers Bronson? Paul Krugman of the New York Times has a saner view of why the right hates Al Gore and his Nobel: "(I)f science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed. For example, Investor’s Business Daily recently declared that the prominence of James Hansen, the NASA researcher who first made climate change a national issue two decades ago, is actually due to the nefarious schemes of — who else? — George Soros.

"Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy."