Flip-flopping Republicans can't escape what they said on tape
Sarah Palin and other high-profile Republicans may be denying the science behind climate change now, but that's not what they were saying before.
Tue, Jan 04 2011 at 12:05 PM EST
FLIP-FLOP EXPRESS: Sarah Palin and other high-profile Republicans were apparently for climate change before they were against it. (Photo: Guillermo Arias/AP) Republicans who have flip-flopped over their belief in global warming were taken to task on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."
Olbermann went to the tape to show that within the last few years, several high-profile Republicans, including a few presidential hopefuls (as well as the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee), have all done a complete about-face when it comes to climate change.
While Olbermann isn’t exactly known for being down the middle in his political analysis, the tapes he played don’t lie, but the people in the tape do. Olbermann started with soon-to-be Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that “we are not convinced” that carbon is a problem that requires regulation. Upton’s recent editorial doesn’t exactly jive with statements he made two years ago when he said, “Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solution. Everything must be put on the table.”
The Upton flip-flop plot would be good enough for the talking heads, but the way-back machine on Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich also revealed that they have done some flip-flopping of their own on climate change. While Gingrich’s flip is interesting because he appeared with Rep. Nancy Pelosi in a pro-climate change commercial, Palin offered the best contradiction.
Here’s what Palin said when running for vice president back in 2008: “I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change and attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now.” Flash forward to the 2010 campaign trail and her rhetoric seems to have changed. “We should create a competitive climate for investment in renewables, none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming-Gore-gate stuff.”
The complete video from Olbermann of the climate change flip-flopping is posted below. I wonder what has changed in all of these high-profile GOP eyes over the last 24 months that has caused such a change? Oh yeah, there’s another election just around the corner. Nothing elicits a good flip-flop like an election. Just ask John Kerry.
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Comments
Jack
01/04/2011 14:00 PM
After billions of dollars and many decades of research…all the IPCC is able to say for certain is that the world has warmed slightly over the past 150 years. In the opinion of the IPCC’s experts…it’s very likely that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions caused most of the warming during the last third of that period.
It's opinion; opinion is not fact.
We've all been fooled!
spacefunk69
01/04/2011 12:17 PM
Given the tragic truth exposed by Climategate, many people have had a revelation as to how sound the science of global warming is. Many of us feel violated.
