All three networks on Thursday again skipped Barack Obama lecturing the Coast Guard Academy that ignoring the "serious threat" of climate change is a "dereliction of duty." The President somehow blamed the rise of Boko Haram on global warming. He did this on the same week that the terrorist group ISIS claimed the city of Ramadi. By ignoring this controversial address, ABC, NBC and CBS thus rendered it uncontroversial.
Good Morning America, Today and CBS This Morning have a combined eight hours of air-time. What important topics did they cover instead? Today offered four minutes and 17 seconds on how to redesign your living room. GMA devoted two minutes to The Bachelorette and CBS This Morning recapped David Letterman's last appearance on Late Night for four minutes and 37 seconds.
Addressing the Coast Guard Academy's graduation, Obama insisted, "Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security." He lectured the men and women in front of him:
BARACK OBAMA: Understand, climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, yet what we also know is that severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
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OBAMA: It’s now believed that drought, crop failures, and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East.
On his nationally syndicated radio show, Wednesday, a disgusted Mark Levin responded, "Climate change enabled Boko Haram to exploit the situation? Notice he doesn't talk about the Islamo-Nazis themselves. Notice he doesn't talk about Sharia law. Notice he doesn't get into the real cause of the problem."
Levin continued:
MARK LEVIN: Severe drought? There's been severe drought since before the beginning of man. Is this the dumbest mythology? And it's being spouted by the President of the United States. Severe drought, you see, is caused by climate change. Floods are caused by climate change.
On Wednesday, the networks also avoided Obama's controversial speech.
