Republicans have posted what they're calling an "enhanced webcast" of the State of the Union "holding President Obama accountable in real-time." But
one of the enhancements, from a Republican point of view, is a subtraction. Not a minor subtraction, either. At 42 minutes and 44 seconds into the video, Obama begins talking about climate change. At 43 minutes and 25 seconds, there's an extremely unsubtle cut. It goes a little something like this:
2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does—14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century. I've heard some folks try to—[digital record-scratch equivalent]—er around the globe.
What could possibly be missing there? Just this:
I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what—I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe.
Aww, does it hurt the Republicans' fee-fees to have the president point out that "I'm not a scientist" is a transparently stupid dodge? Does it puncture the "I'm not a scientist" dodge to have the president point out that you don't have to be a scientist to listen to what scientists are saying? Apparently so. And apparently Republicans don't even want their audience hearing that this is what scientists say. So really, it's "an enhanced webcast holding President Obama accountable in real-time except when we can't even come up with a flimsy partisan counter to what he's saying."