Climate Change v. Santa Claus

Do people who are running for office or even the people who are already in office ever listen to what is actually coming out of their mouths? Or do they just really like the sound of their own voice? I'm getting a little tired of hearing asinine things from people and then having them explain it away by saying, "Oh, I misspoke" or something along those lines. If they would just say, "Well, that's because I'm an idiot", that's something I could get behind. The only thing that makes the idiocy even slightly tolerable is that it's A) usually amusing, and B) extremely mockable. I just wish it wasn't coming out of the mouths of folks who are supposed to be guiding this fine land of ours.

Today's case in point comes to us courtesy of the great state of West Virginia. Apparently, a one Rep. Nick Rahall, who is the incumbent Democratic for the U.S. House in the 3rd District, was asked "...six questions posed to him by members of The Register-Herald editorial board earlier this week." I don't know why only six. Why not ten? Then again, why ten? I don't know either. The point is that one of the questions was, inevitably, about climate change.

The question posed before him was "Will the EPA always have an adversarial relationship with West Virginia or is there room for compromise, and is climate change a real issue and what role does West Virginia play in the future of the environment?" OK, maybe that's why there were only six questions. I didn't realize that they were cramming more than one question into each inquiry. That's an awful lot to ask in one run-on sentence. Regardless, he did answer it. And what he said had me extremely confused.

The man replied, in part, "Climate change — to deny it exists, to just put your head in the sand and, ‘oh no, it doesn’t exist, what are you talking about,’ is about like standing on the floor of Macy’s during the month of December and claiming Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Come on, get real. There are responsible coal operators who work with us and continue to work with us, not only on climate change, but safety is another example.” Wait. What now?

He claims that to state that climate change does not exist is the same thing as claiming that Santa Claus doesn't exist? But...wait. I thought that....hmmm. Does he know something that I don't know? He does appear to be quite old. Maybe there's some sort of lore that I am unaware of? Lore that indicates that Santa Claus does exist?

Would it only be during the month of December that one could make that proclamation? I'm not sure how that plays into it. It's a charming thought, though. I'd really like it if someone did stand of the floor of the Macy's during December and claim that Santa Claus didn't exist and have that proclamation be met with a rousing round of shocked gasps from other yuletide shoppers. That would be amazing. But I'm kind of thinking it would barely get people to turn their heads. Me, it would only get to turn up my iPod so that I didn't have to be bothered by the ranting man who was spouting the obvious. Yeah, yeah. We know. Now are you going to buy that meat fork that is also a meat thermometer or can I buy it?

Now, I'm sure that if you asked this guy about this, he would simply say that he misspoke. And I'm going to pray that he did misspeak. But should this be something that you're misspeaking about? It seems a little strange that you'd take complete fiction and throw it into your argument to make a point about what is factual. Hopefully, in the future, he'll shy away from any sort of Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny references. Then again, if he doesn't and he refers to them in the same way that he did Santa Claus, then we've got a story on our hands! And it'll be goooooood!