Alaskans are being told not to believe their lying eyes
by digby
Over at Salon this morning I talk about the colorful politics of the 49th state, my old home --- Alaska. A state which is seeing its climate change dramatically on a daily basis. And yet --- it's a red state, drenched in oil, that requires its politicians to deny what their lying eyes are telling them:
If Alaskan politics is a study in contradictions, there is no greater example than the argument over climate change in the Senate race between incumbent Democrat Mark Begich and his rivals in August’s Republican primary: Mead Treadwell, Dan Sullivan and the far-right gadfly in the Vogler tradition, Joe Miller of Fairbanks. .
Begich is the “hysterical hippie” of the bunch simply by admitting that climate change exists. Even he, however, is not one to jump on the “we need to do something urgently” bandwagon. He agrees that it should be studied but prefers the issue be discussed in terms of costs and benefits because … well, because. The knock-down, drag-out fight is among the Republicans. Apparently, no matter how shrilly you decry climate change as a communist plot to destroy everything good and wholesome about America, it is not enough.
Read on to see the pretzel logic they must employ to be taken "seriously" among the right wingers. Basically, they cannot tell the truth even when the truth is evident all around them.
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