November 26, 2009

Suit alleges inappropriate truth-telling

A right-wing Washington D.C. "think tank"* wants to sue NASA scientist Gavin A. Schmidt for his Herculean undertakings at the website RealClimate.org:
Yes they’re planning to sue Schmidt for the "inappropriate behavior" of moderating comments at RealClimate. Of course, the point of this vexatious suit isn’t to win — it’s to harass and distract Schmidt because he is being effective.
Very, very effective.

This is a remarkable and fascinating story, and one has been able to witness, over the course of just a couple of days, the construction of a right-wing meme based entirely on falsehoods and ignorance.

Schmidt has been virtually instrumental in correcting the factual record and enlightening the ignorant. And now they want to punish him with a lawsuit: for telling the truth. Think-tank about that.

Read: Every factual assertion by the CEI fellow is false

* Whose benefactors include Milwaukee's own Bradley Foundation.

2 comments:

Rick Esenberg said...

They're not, near as I can tell, planning to sue Schmidt and they aren't suing for "inappropriate truth telling." They have provided preliminary notices for FOIA suits against NASA. That's quite a different matter, no?

illusory tenant said...

The CEI fellow who filed the notice of intent to sue claims Schmidt and RealClimate.org are "implicated in the leaked files."

I didn't say Schmidt was to be sued for inappropriate truth telling; that was Tim Lambert in the indented quote.

I said, "Suit alleges inappropriate truth-telling," a reference to the fact that the CEI fellow is suggesting that Schmidt's moderating comments at RealClimate was performed inappropriately while on the government's dime.