“I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized,” Perry answered. [It has to be, scientists don’t write policy] “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. [What are their names?] I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. [Appeal to ignorance of what is actually happening.] Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed.” [Idiotic patronizing build on hyuck, hyuch, common wisdom.]
I already mentioned how embarrassing it is to have this guy running around saying idiotic things to appeal to the Idiocrats, sorry the Tea Party.
It looks now, seriously that you have to be flat out against any kind of science to appeal to the nutjob right. Things really have metasticized now. Just for reference, here’s GWB back in 2002…
I also want to tell you one of my favourite moments was to go down to Crawford and turn on my NOAA radio to get the weather. I don’t know whether my guy is a computer or a person. But the forecast is always accurate, and I appreciate that. I also want to thank you for your hard work, on behalf of the American people.
Quick note: The Republicans have gone so far right, the service the NOAA provides that Bush praised is now part of that “wasteful government spending.”
America and the world share this common goal: we must foster economic growth in ways that protect our environment. We must encourage growth that will provide a better life for citizens, while protecting the land, the water, and the air that sustain life.
In pursuit of this goal, my government has set two priorities: we must clean our air, and we must address the issue of global climate change. We must also act in a serious and responsible way, given the scientific uncertainties. While these uncertainties remain, we can begin now to address the human factors that contribute to climate change. Wise action now is an insurance policy against future risks.
The sick thing about this….in the intervening 10 years since this speech, the scientific evidence for climate change just keeps getting stronger.
However, the conservative mindsets ability to deal with reality has continued to erode. Hence, even as the evidence gets stronger, the conservative mindset then much work that much harder to dismiss all the new information. Instead of having to dismiss each and every new piece that backs up the original, certain segments of conservatism (the Tea Party) have now just dismissed the dataset wholesale.
It’s sad, too, because when you track down all these “scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea”, it turns out it’s the same folks, saying the same debunked things. They’ve just now filtered out any real science, it’s all nutjobs now agreeing it’s all a conspiracy *even as more data piles up*. They just simply dismiss the new data as part of the conspiracy. Voila, anti-intellectualism in a nutshell.
Robot Pirate Ninja 
I live in Texas and I’m scared that the state will dry up and die because the governor refuses to accept Texas has a climate crisis. He can change all of that by hiring people to plant trees and build a monorail system for Texas cities. He could support the development of the magnetic motor to replace the gasoline engines in our cars. That would cure Texas of global warming and Governor Goodhair refuses to do anything that will save the state from the climate crisis.
Texas may be the current ground-zero for the effects of climate change but that state has no monopoly on the numbers of climate deniers. I believe that there may actually be more who deny than those who affirm. It wouldn’t be the first time that those who were correct were also the minority.