It was, for more than one reason, one of the most stupendous achievements in dishonesty and propaganda in history, particularly in the history of television. And yet it flew mostly under the radar; and now, years later, nobody has mentioned it for ages.

Media Matters did conscientiously give it a passing mention, which was what brought it to my attention. But that was nearly 15 years ago, when I had just started this site. So I was still learning the ropes, and my readership was still at a trickle. Thus, not very many people learned about it from me. The post is still active, but gets very few hits; and the link I originally provided is long defunct, since the story long vanished into a black hole, even at Media Matters. So let’s go back and have a fresh look at it, in more detail this time.

The date was November 19, 2010. The place was the studios of Fox “News” in New York City. The host was Dear Old Sean Hannity. His guest was Brent Bozell of Media Research Center. The topic was climate change. More specifically climate science denial. More specifically still, the so-called “Climategate” non-scandal. And even more specifically still, the so-called “media bias” in (supposedly not) covering it — you know, the old “librulmedia” bit.

Several subsequent developments have made this episode even more meaningful. Fox, for its relentless propaganda efforts, has become more endeared than ever to Dear Leader, who has tapped into the network’s nutty rumors and allegations as the basis for his beliefs and policies (sic) and has tapped the pool of the individuals repeating them to staff his administration. It’s no longer even slightly hyperbolic to speak of the “Fox cabinet”. Hannity’s co-conspirator Tucker Carlson (it’s really hard to see these two without thinking, “my god, what a total waste of perfectly good hair”) successfully defended himself in a defamation lawsuit by insisting that “no reasonable person” would take him seriously.

Meanwhile, Fox became the only network in the history of television to be ordered to pay three-quarters of a billion dollars for spreading malicious lies. The network hawked those particular falsehoods, concerning the 2020 election, at the same time its personalities were acknowledging in private communications that they knew the claims were “really crazy stuff”, in the words of Rupert Murdoch himself. Hannity, for his part, admitted under oath that he “did not believe it for one second” while he was pushing those lies, and that Dear Leader was “acting like an insane person”. But he still knew which side his white bread was buttered on.

Those lies helped stir up the infamous violent attack on the Capitol, resulting in the convictions of hundreds of culprits — all of them pardoned by Former Guy, who, as if this writing, is also considering financially rewarding them (at taxpayer expense, of course) for their thuggish efforts on his behalf. Among them is the son of Brent Bozell (whose father also was convicted of assaulting a police officer during a politically motivated demonstration).

We’ve put Bozell himself under a magnifying glass in a post examining his inept attempts to establish “liberal bias” in the mainstream media at his lucrative website Media Research Center. It was a piece he did about the “Climategate scandal” that prefaced his appearance on Hannity to beat the same drum as a duet.

To watch this video nowadays, you have to go to Internet Archive. In the course of 90 seconds (the segment was two minutes, of which 30 seconds were consumed by showing a clip), this duo lied 13 — yes THIRTEEN — times between the two of them; Hannity himself told 5 lies, and Bozell told 8, to which Hannity gave his tacit approval. Thirteen lies in the space of 90 seconds, which amounts to one lie every 6.9 seconds. How is that even humanly possible??

First of all, simply talking about a “Climategate scandal” with a straight face constitutes a lie in itself. Because there was no such thing as Climategate. There was only the theft of scientists’ emails (right-wing media incorrectly characterized the emails as “leaked”) , which were taken out of context and grotesquely distorted by hacks with no understanding of the science. Because the wingers tried so hard to make an Everest out of an ant hill, “Climategate” was investigated EIGHT times by different agencies — all of which found no evidence of wrongdoing. But we’re not even counting this as one of the Hannity-Bozell lies; let’s just give them a mulligan on their dishonest use of the term “Climategate scandal”, and go on to the other lies:

Hannity

artificially altered the science

These people are constantly claiming that scientists have cooked the books on climate change, but they can’t seem to produce one single bona fide example.

to hide global warming

Scientists are certainly not the ones trying to hide global warming, so this lie doesn’t even make sense. He apparently means they’re trying to hide evidence that global warming isn’t real. Which is also a lie.

which I say, and others, doesn’t exist

Well, it’s true enough that Sean and others say that climate change doesn’t exist. But it’s still a lie. And notice the pervasive arrogant premise that opinion and belief are just as valid as fact.

a lot of what they just said isn’t true

He’s referring to the clip he just aired from CBS that highlights the faux controversy. There’s not a single statement in it that isn’t true. What is true, however, is that the clip, like all too much other media coverage of the story, gives the anti-science crowd far too much slack and respect.

if the science is so incontrovertible, why did the scientists have to alter it?

See above.

Bozell

the media have made a deliberate decision not to cover it

In the days immediately after the non-story broke, media coverage was wall to wall. It was only later that it thinned out a bit.

once a month… that’s no coverage

Once a month is more than ample coverage for a non-story of little to no consequence.

when they do cover it, it’s to dismiss…

Ah, if only this were true. But, as the very same clip he’s just screened illustrates, it clearly is not. What happens is that the media treat the matter in a “he said, she said” fashion, saying in effect, “well, on the one hand we have scientists who say that climate change is real, and on the other hand we have Fox and and a few Yourtubers saying it isn’t, so who knows”. Bothsidesism is almost never fair and balanced; by putting lies on the same plane as the truth, you help promote the lies.

the scandal that exists

The real scandal is that people like this manage to create a false narrative that gains so much traction.

blew the entire environmental movement to shreds

Not just the concept of climate change. The entire environmental movement. Because of Climategate, says Bozell, we now know that poisoning rivers really doesn’t kill fish after all.

it proved…a political operation…

Perhaps we really should count this as two lies. First there is the notion that the fake scandal proved something. All it proved was that it’s possible to take emails out of context and misrepresent them; but we already knew that. Even if all the claims presented about those stolen emails were perfectly true (and by the way, that little CBS video leaves that possibility open) it would not diminish the reality of climate change. And then there’s the lie that climate science is merely a “political operation”. The only reason climate change is considered a political issue is that the right-wing loony fringe (aka the right-wing mainstream) has insisted on making it one.

to control world economies

Why be content with mere lies when you can throw in a batshit conspiracy theory or two a as well?

the far left… is going to just dismiss the facts

Again, we’re counting this as just one lie, but it’s really a twofer. First, there’s the suggestion that scientists represent the “far left”, or that only the “far left” is concerned about science. Then there is the notion that it is really scientists who “dismiss the facts” rather than the anti-sciencers.

So why rehash this story after all these years? For one thing, as noted above, the players in this sorry story have become even more prominent and influential. Additionally, these same lies are still being told about climate science, and science in general. Furthermore, the sheer volume of lies in such a short space constitutes in itself a propaganda tactic that we’ll be examining in the near future. And there’s one more point worth making here: originally, this episode was newsworthy because back in 2010, even though these lies were common, it was rather unusual to see them stacked so thick. But while a lie every 6.9 seconds for a minute and a half is still a remarkable achievement, a general deluge of mendacity is no longer particularly noteworthy. This is the new abnormal.