However, an instance has arisen that is so profound in its abject stupidity, so cynical in service to a malign purpose, that we could not ignore it. Here you have Republican/ Stupid Party and Freedumb Caucus member Rep. Thomas Massie, from Kentucky coal country "grilling" former Secretary of State John Kerry in a House Oversight Committee climate change hearing the other day:
MASSIE: Isn't it true you have a science degree from Yale?
KERRY: It's a Bachelor of Arts degree.
MASSIE: Is it a political science degree?
KERRY: Yes. Political science.
MASSIE: So, how do you get a Bachelor of Arts in a science?
KERRY: Well, it's a liberal arts education and degree, and a Bachelor of Arts.
MASSIE: Okay, so it's NOT really science, I think it's appropriate that somebody with a pseudo-science degree is here pushing pseudo-science in front of our committee today. (quiet laughter around him) I want to ask you --
KERRY: Are you serious? (loud laughter) I mean, this is really a serious happening, here?Later, the "questioning" turned to the topic of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributing to global climate change:
KERRY: We know definitively that at least in the last 800,000 years, has atmospheric CO2 been as high as it is today....
MASSIE: The reason you chose 800,000 years ago is because 200 million years before that it was greater than it was today.
KERRY: Yeah, but there weren't HUMAN BEINGS then, it was a different WORLD, folks, we didn't have 7 billion people!
MASSIE: So, how did it get to 2000 ppm if we humans weren't here?
KERRY: Because there were all kinds of geologic events going on on Earth that spewed up --
MASSIE: Did geology stop when we got on the planet?
KERRY: Mr. Chairman, (to Chairman Cummings) this is just not a serious conversation.Now, here's the catch: Massie has a BS and an MS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so he knows political science isn't a science degree. The best interpretation is that the cynical little squidge was trying to be sarcastic about Kerry's expertise, because that's what Republicans do when confronted with science. They have no answers so they malign and disparage. Massie would also be likely to know that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was high 200 million years ago because of, for example, volcanic activity. So, one can assume Massie's not the dolt he was playing in the hearing.
So, how to explain Massie's performance? It's because he thinks his constituents are stupid. He thinks they'll think he's clever and scoring points on that pointy- headed elitist Kerry (keeping in mind Massie himself went to MIT). It's because he thinks his constituents can be distracted from the truth by a few dumb bombs dropped at a hearing (that'll no doubt be cut and pasted into a campaign ad next year). Massie and his fellow Republican cynics have been working this angle for decades, thinking so little of the intelligence of their voters that they happily perform charades like this, counting on their ability to con the gullible when voting time comes. It's working for some of them, so far.
Sad!
