Rachel Maddow Insists Climategate Is 'All Made Up,' Conservatives 'Refuse to Acknowledge Reality'

January 11th, 2010 8:28 AM

Rachel Maddow was playing the Church Lady of Political Discourse again on Thursday, doing the Superiority Dance of political seriousness. She wants a serious and civil discussion of the issues, but the conservatives keep failing her with "weird lies." She called Climategate "all made up" and insisted "I don‘t want to be fighting with people who refuse to acknowledge reality."

This was MSNBC, so Maddow wasn't discussing this with a conservative opponent. She was complaining to David Corn of the hard-left magazine Mother Jones:  

MADDOW: I have to tell you, David, I — without being snarky, I despair over this. I despair over this because there are real fights to have over the response to terrorism. You know, there are real fights to have over health reform But what did we do? We followed the Republicans‘ lead and spent all that time talking about death panels—which is made up.

CORN: Government takeover. Yes.

MADDOW: Yes. And on climate change. There are a lot of interesting ways to talk about the right way to respond to that, but instead, it‘s Climate-gate, it‘s all made up. Following the Republican framing into nonsense land and we‘ve ended up talking about stuff that is not real instead of talking about policy. I want to have policy fights. I don‘t want to be fighting with people who refuse to acknowledge reality.

Inside the Mother Jones echo chamber of MSNBC, Corn and Maddow agreed on everything, and in terms of denying reality, they think Barack Obama is every bit as serious about tackling terrorism as George W. Bush. They cannot believe Republicans would insist otherwise:  

MADDOW: What would have happened if Democrats reacted to the "shoe bomber" back in 2001-2002 the way Republicans have reacted to the underpants bomber?

CORN: I think it‘s fair to say that Dick Cheney would have arranged for secret trials and would have sent them all to Gitmo.(Laughter) I mean, I remember those days. I mean, they didn‘t—the Democrats did not respond this way, the way that Republicans have responded for the last two weeks.

MADDOW: Yes.

As for the "without being snarky" claims, Maddow kept mocking "little Todd Tiahrt" and "tiny Todd Tiahrt" on Thursday's show for the GOP congressman's statement that Janet Napolitano should resign because only "an act of God" prevented Abdulmutallab from blowing up the airplane on Christmas in Detroit.