(1) “Marc(with a C) Morono is right up there with the ‘Ditto Heads’(Limpbaugh listeners) and would be qualified as a Wally Mart greeter, no more.

We have dumbed down our country and turned fascist to the point that mis-informationists thrive where 20 years ago they would be laughed out of the room by REAL Academics.

IMHO ”

(2) “Well, first of all, I give high marks to Leslie Kaufman for cleverly skewering Marc Morano and making him look like the moron he is. And, she did it with her journalistic ethics and professionalism intact! Not an easy task. (Is Kaufman a male or female — Leslie? I’ll say she, since I don’t know.)

But, aside from the impression that she was able to generate of MM, she also gave ‘ink’ to a guy who needs to be exposed to a larger audience. Why give him this exposure? Because with the deep pockets that fund Morano’s disinformation efforts, we need as many people as possible to know who this guy is, and who his funding sources are. (Richard Mellon Scaife (conservative cause financier extraordinaire), ExxonMobil)

Morano may be thinking he’s won this round because he got prominent mention in TNYT. But, he’s wrong. I love how Kaufman clearly makes The Top Denier look the buffoon that he is. Kaufman’s readers won this round, with her doing the punching! “

Distinctly odd.

I suspect most readers of TNYT are fairly sophisticated. But even if not the tone of the piece is likely to seep in, a warning to ignore MM.

[JR: I am certain MM would have paid $50,000 to get that article written precisely the way it was. But it was free.]

JR: “It is publicity he couldn’t even dream of — to be legitimized by the NYT as a voice for the deniers.”

He is a top voice of the deniers, and I’m glad the voice of global warming denialism is exposed as a political operative, smear merchant, and dishonest hack. For the example, the article says:

“He then jumped to Cyber News Service, where he was the first to publish accusations from Vietnam Swift-boat veterans that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, then the Democratic presidential nominee, had glorified his war record. Many of the accusations later proved unfounded.”

JR: “But the vast majority of NYT readers have never heard of him and don’t follow this debate closely. For them, this is just a he said she said, and the NYT picks who are the legitimate voices. Geez, there are hundreds of serious climate scientists who never get this kind of treatment.”

Many NYT readers have heard the misinformation from the Inhofe press releases, like it or not, regarding the “hundreds of prominent scientists dissenting” or what not. It’s important to know where that’s coming from – a political hack.

JR: “Geez, there are hundreds of serious climate scientists who never get this kind of treatment.”

I’ll agree with you there. And contrarian scientists are household names because of the undue press coverage they get.

Fallout – a term coming from the atomic age – is that residual radiation following a violent nuclear explosion. It falls out of the mushroom cloud. Mixing with the atmosphere it is spread widely, possibly killing and injuring more than the original explosion as it spreads through the environment and food chain

Why the NYTimes would want to enable and assist in spreading fallout?

Morano is a joke to most of us because we’re familiar with his unserious email blasts which often use mutually exclusive talking points.

The average reader of the NYT does not have the backstory. They will see a person who is upfront about making climate change a political issue get attacked by environmentalists and eggheads. This will be trumpeted across the denialosphere and right wing outlets as legitimizing opposition to climate legislation.

Media outlets have a responsibility to the public. Giving Dyson, and worse, Morano, such a priceless opportunity to spread their nonsense is nothing short of an abdication of that responsibility.

This is the same problem Revkin has. There seems to be this journalistic belief that if you sneak in enough qualifiers and the occasional critic, you’ve done due diligence in not misleading the public no matter what the subject. This couldn’t be any further from the truth.

This is reckless journalism rooted in outdated “ethics” and tradition which will only make it harder to get something meaningful done.