Speaking of deliberately misleading coverage of climate change issues, this editorial from The Washington Times - proudly Twittered by John Oxendine - is an absolute trainwreck. It obsessively scrutinizes the interview responses from three scientists quoted in an Associated Press article dealing with the mischaracterization of data from some in the climate science community and then, in interviews with two of those scientists, does the exact thing it accuses the AP of doing ...

The first scientist quoted in the article, Mark Frankel, is director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AP quotes him as concluding that there is, "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'" While the article mentions that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and some Republican lawmakers are calling for independent investigations, AP doesn't note the views of the scientists they interviewed.

When The Washington Times talked to Mr. Frankel, the scientist gave a quite different impression. The e-mails, he said, are not sufficient to reach any judgment at all on whether the data or science was faked or misleading. "You can't do that on the e-mails alone, you can't do it on the e-mails or the program," he concluded. For that reason, Mr. Frankel supports investigation of East Anglia and related allegations of fraud at Pennsylvania State University.

Um, what?

Wow. If this is ever grasping for straws, but, given the volumes of research showing the definitive connection between carbon emissions and climate change, needless nitpicking is all detractors have left I suppose. Still, building an entire argument around semantics is, well, kinda stupid.