Ah, seems environmentalists just don’t know their own power!
Disgraced conservative columnist (and frequent biotech-booster) Michael Fumento — recently canned by Scripps Howard News Service after revelations that he accepted grants from Monsanto, which he never disclosed to his readers or to Scripps — says he’s the target of a "witch hunt" run by [ominous music] the greeeens.
It’s no coincidence, you see, that he came under fire after conservative Doug Bandow admitted he wrote columns for lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for cash. Fumento mutters darkly:
Bandow was long a critic of environmental activists, and when he went down a light bulb lit up over their heads.
They realized they might eliminate more of their critics by simply accusing them of being paid corporate shills, and then siccing the media on them to see what they could dig up. They assembled an "enemies list," giving it to reporters at publications including the New York Times and Business Week. I have locked horns with green groups for the past 15 years and earned a spot on that list.
Close reading of the rest of the column reveals rather little — and by "rather little" I mean "zero" — evidence for the existence of the alleged enemies list, much less for the light bulbs and subsequent environmentalist conspiracies.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to reveal too much. After all, they’re watching him …
But don’t rest on your laurels, you McCarthyite greens (hey, if you’re out there gimme a ring, I want to see the list!). Fumento’s transition from quasi-obscurity to total obscurity is not going to stop his valiant struggle.
If all this sounds insane, remember there really was a time when harmless old biddies went up in flames simply because a neighbor wanted their land or livestock. But I’m no ash heap. The environmentalist THINK they’ve shut me up. Wrong. I have not yet begun to write.
Below the piece sits a sad coda to Fumento’s paranoiac rodomontade: Seems his little bio blurb hasn’t yet been updated:
Michael Fumento is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. and a science and health columnist for Scripps Howard News Service.
Um, not so much.
(via James Wolcott)
Update [2006-1-20 12:8:12 by David Roberts]: Tim Lambert has more.
