Update 3/16/12: Joe Romm weighs in at Climate Progress

James Inhofe has a book to sell, and God-eh might be on the side of Big Oil, but Inhofe’s book will have to sell itself with no help from the Divine. So the deluded senator from Oklahoma will be making the media rounds in search of a few more shekels to pad his quarter million a year salary and luxury health-care plan courtesy of the US taxpayer. Which explains how he ended up behind enemy lines Thursday on MSNBC’s the Rachel Maddow show.

Maddow is the best there is, informed, razor-sharp, and politely disarming to the point of enchanting. She committed two full segments to the interview and had Inhofe on the ropes several times. But the constraints of commercial TV work in the favor of accomplished liars. Had she not called him on it, repeatedly, insistently, interrupting to block his escape route and get him back on task, he would have completely gotten away with:

1) claiming liberals openly or secretly agreed with the hyped fraud of climate gate because orgs like the UK Telegraph said so early on and it is a liberal newspaper (It’s actually the most conservative mainstream newspaper in Britain).

2) Inhofe believed in global warming before he found out how much it costs to address (WTF? Exxon’s bank account balance and empirical temperature data sets are completely independent).

3) there are more scientists who reject climate change than accept it (The consensus of researchers in relevant fields is ~97% accept).

4) Obama, the anti-energy green Kenyan socialist, is wrecking US energy production (In 2010 – 2011 domestic fossil fuel exploration/production set an all time record high and 2012 is on track to beat that in large part because the WH streamlined the permitting process right in the middle of the worst oil spill in US history).

5) Inhofe’s own sweet, innocent grand-daughter is being brainwashed in government run public schools about global warming and that righteously pisses him off (Presumably, she’s been given a science textbook or lesson that made glancing reference to the decades of work compiled by the 97% of scientists Inhofe rejects).

6) Arguably the biggest howler of them all, Inhofe tried to maintain Michael Moore and environmental groups have more money to promote the real science than all the Kochwhores and energy companies combined have to muddle it (Exxon is the single most profitable company on earth with gross annual revenues pushing half a trillion dollars, the Koch brothers are collectively the wealthiest billionaires on the planet, their many tax-exempt foundations employ thousands of anti-science foot-soldiers and have given another $100 million to outside conservative advocacy groups).

On other news programs, like Meet the Press, Inhofe would have probably prattled on and run out the clock unchallenged on any one of these zomblie lies. David Gregory might have asked Inhofe why NASA’s temperature record shows warming, and then stared blankly nodding his melon-sized head in feigned, solemn agreement while Inhofe no-sponded with meandering anecdotes or the political equivalent of “I like turtles”. George Will would have hogged the camera afterward congratulating Inhofe for his bold stand against the EPA Goliath and then rushed off to pen another screed against climate science. Politifact would have followed up with a “mostly true” rating and conservative science deniars would have trumpeted for days about how Inhofe singe-handedly slayed the vast liberal media conspiracy of global warming.

Instead this was an actual interview, with succinct follow-up questions performed by a prepared journalist who was not afraid to contradict the subject with documented facts, and the results diverge greatly from the usual propaganda offered up on most cable and networks news “interviews” as news you can use. Watch below.

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