Private Conversations on Display

A reminder: two years ago the CRU (Climate Research Unit) at East Anglea University had a few thousand emails and documents leaked to the public. I write “leaked” instead of “hacked” because almost everyone agrees that some of the documents that were released could not have been obtained by a simple hack. The source code for some of the modeling programs for instance. Indeed, the zip file containing all of the files to be released appeared to be a file being assembled in reply to freedom of information requests. It contained only the emails, documents and other files requested by the very specific freedom of information requests. Hackers are rarely that selective in the material they release.

Anyways: the CRU was responsible for most of the data and research for the United Nations Climate Change reports that many nations (including ours) has based most of their environmental policy and regulations on. Ever hear of the infamous “hockey stick” graph shown in Al Gore’s book and documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth”? That was based completely on CRU data.

These emails showed, quite damningly, that the researchers could not find any real change over the last fifteen years and they thought it was “a real travesty”. It furthermore shows how they had to “fudge” the data to show even a slight increase in temperatures in those same 15 years. They even actively and vigorously collaborated with other scientists and editors of Science Journals to discredit and smear scientists who disagreed with them. The emails seem to indicate that these men worked harder to hide and cover-up their corrupt, falsified science then they did actually “researching”.

A lot of mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times refused to publish the “Climategate” emails. The NYT tried to address the resulting criticisms in an article titled “Private Conversations on Display” in which they stated the emails were supposed to be “private” and that the writers did not realize they would be read by the public in general and therefore, they considered publishing the emails as “immoral”.

Fast forward to last week… and the New York Times seems to have changed their policy on private conversations. Not only do they not have any problem with publishing emails featuring emails not meant for public review, but they also recruited readers to help scour them for any potentially embarrassing conversations.

I am referring to the release of some 24,000 emails belonging to Sarah Palin while she worked as the Governor of Alaska. No doubt the NYT will try to defend this activity by pointing out that Sarah Palin was a government employee, received tax payer dollars and therefore, the emails should be subject to public scrutiny, but this argument is flawed when you consider how many of the scientists implicated in the Climategate emails work for publicly funded universities. Furthermore, I’d wager that the US government has diverted more tax payer dollars to the UN’s climate change panel, the CRU and climate change research in general than the entire state of Alaska, let alone the governor’s office.

This isn’t the first time the NYT has demonstrated such blatant hypocrisy, of course. They published the original Palin email hacking (BEFORE climategate). Those emails were not from government computers, but her private Yahoo account. Furthermore, they had no problem publishing the hacked cables from the Wikileaks website that damaged US foreign relations.

Everyone now knows that the 24,000 emails reveal something about Sarah Palin that the NYT and progressives in general will find alarming. She’s actually a normal, caring and honest person who seems to just want to do the right thing. The most damning email they could find was one in which she contemplates running for Vice President.

Think about that for a minute… how many politicians do you think would be able to say the same thing if they had 24,000 private emails released to the public for all to see. Do you think they would fair as well? Call me a pessimist, but I somehow doubt many would come out smelling like a rose, as Palin did.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the nightly news programs will even mention the 24,000 emails now that the release seems to have backfired? They sure thought the Paul Revere quote was news worthy. The NBC nightly news even dismissed the Weiner story on the same night they trumpeted what they thought was a Palin Faux Pas. They even forgot to mention the fact that according to historians, Palin was actually correct. 

I personally hope the mainstream media continues their slobbering, visceral, hatred-fueled campaign against Palin. With every attack, they expose themselves as the biased, progressive lapdogs that most people know they are.