Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Carly Fiorina Destroys Katie Couric on Climate Change
It’s from May but — just in case you missed it — it’s here for your viewing enjoyment:
Published in Politics, Science & Technology
I agree with most of the comments. But my main reaction to watching the video was how much I dislike Couric.
Reagan ‘pulled his punches’ all the time when it was strategically smart to do so. When he finally decided he could work with Gorbachev and started softening relations with the Soviet Union, he did so against the opposition of his own right wing in the House and Senate. He was constantly cutting deals with Tip O’Neill, with whom he developed a warm and mutually respectful relationship. He gave in on tax increases. David Stockman lost faith in Reagan precisely because Reagan compromised so much on spending that the deficit ballooned. But Reagan made those compromises to build support for his defense build-up and his Soviet strategy, which at the time was more important.
Reagan’s strength was that he knew exactly where he could compromise and where he needed to stand firm. And he used the former to gain more ground with the latter. That’s how you get conservative policies through. Not by yelling and stamping your feet and drawing lines in the sand. One of Reagan’s key strengths is that everyone liked him – even his opponents. He didn’t achieve that by being bombastic and refusing to compromise.
The problem with the Republicans today isn’t that they compromise, it’s that they do it so poorly that they constantly get steamrollered by the Democrats. It’s also that they compromise on the wrong things. They give up the farm on very big issues and then stamp their feet at irrelevancies. They’re simply incompetent. Boehner is a failure not because he’s squishy or a Rhino – he’s a failure because he doesn’t have the skills to go toe-to-toe with his opponents on both sides of the aisle.
The solution to that problem is to elect smarter, more capable people who can do the dance. If all you care about is ideology, you’ll continue to elect committed conservatives who get slaughtered once they are actually inside the machine.
Reagan never pulled his punches advocating his conservative philosophy and principles. Cutting the best deal possible with the Democrats in congress was not pulling punches – the Democrats held a majority in the House 8 of 8 years and a majority in the Senate for 6 of 8 years.
Reagan never pulled his punches communicating with the American people or debating the MSM.
That’s true. But Reagan could pull that off because he had immense depth of knowledge when it came to the core principles he believed in. If you pressed him on his conservative beliefs, he could quote Locke and Bastiat and Hayek all day long. He was immune to the ‘gotcha’ question because he almost always knew more about the question than did his interviewer. And because his beliefs came from a very deep intellectual place, he could speak extemporaneously and off-script and not contradict himself or get twisted into a corner by a clever interviewer.
The problem I have with many Republican leaders today is that too many of them know how to say the words, but they really aren’t sure why other than at a very superficial level. That’s why they always seem to become deers in the headlights as soon as they are knocked slightly out of their comfort zones. They’re cargo-cult Republicans.
ctlaw said:
I completely agree. ‘Clean Coal’ is a chimera. Some people don’t seem to understand that CO2 is not like Sulfer Dioxide or other pollutants that exist in much smaller percentages. CO2 is the major component of fossil fuel combustion. It can’t be ‘filtered’ out.
Sequestration is incredibly expensive – a gallon of gas produces about 20lbs of CO2. The output is greater in volume and mass than the input. Now think about the massive infrastructure we have for moving oil and gas around and storing it, and you can get an idea of the scale that would be required. It would make oil completely uneconomical – which is probably why the left supports it.
The candidates should be pushing back on the whole “carbon pollution” thing. CO2 is all natural and completely organic. They should be selling it at Whole Foods.
Yes, but intelligent viewers sensed that she really wasn’t “agreeing” so much as “not disagreeing” and then using the forum to minimize the importance of the issue to the point of total insult to Ms. Couric and her ilk.
Yes, you win (technically). But you seem to read much into what she (and, possibly, he) meant by “government action”. Until she gets more explicit, I’ll cut her some slack and enjoy performances such as this.
Look, I suspect I’m with you on the science but where you are stuck on “Yet this tiptoeing around the media is what got us where we are today“, Mrs. Fiorina seems to think think that not giving them the sound bite / ammunition to completely marginalize her from now on is a better strategy. I suspect that her plan of staying in the game on this…or at least showing others how to do it…and then spending four or eight years “minimizing” whatever government action and educating the public from the office is more effective than earning the “denier” stamp in six seconds of an interview of which the remaining 43:32 would never be seen by anyone.
THANK YOU WESTERN CHAUVINIST! WOOOOEEEEE!!
Just played this for hubby. We’re literally applauding it.
No one yet has mentioned Carly’s repetition of the phrase, “read the fine print.” I suspect she was prepared to address shortcomings in common presumptions of AGW, but not until Couric asked about specifics. Couric probably realized she was outmatched on preparation and declined to take Carly’s bait. There was no follow up on “the fine print”, despite repeated opportunities.
Larry Koler said:
I totally get that. And I don’t disagree. I also get the fear that ‘conceding’ the basic science moves the bar in the wrong direction. But I look at it a different way: Good debate tactics are good debate tactics. You don’t have to be afraid of the mainstream media to want to crush them in a debate.
Personally, I find it very refreshing to watch a candidate who doesn’t make me quake in fear of a stupid answer every time they are interviewed. I like watching a candidate who can twist Katie Couric or Chris Matthews into a pretzel and make them squirm. And I don’t think you have to concede the basic science to do this – you just have to deflect the question away from it and direct towards where the democrats are the weakest. That’s giving up nothing.
CO2 is plant food. It is true, and a great line. Say it loud and proud.
My regard for her continues its precipitous rise.
If we don’t nominate Fioria for president, we need to find something important for her. I’m not sure what that is, but she has Grade-A political and communication skills, and we’d be fools not to employ then.
Son of Spengler:
No one yet has mentioned Carly’s repetition of the phrase, “read the fine print.”
We have been stuck for too long with pols who don’t even read the bill, let alone the fine print. I get the feeling if she were President we’d never hear her say at a press conference,” Well, I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t comment.”
Bumper sticker: Carly 2016: She even reads the fine print.
She is in a league of her own in these situations, which means she is probably the most electable of our candidates, especially against Hillary. Moreover, it’s hard to believe that she wouldn’t be an outstanding President because she could and probably would sell the radical changes we must have.
Is VP a viable choice? Or would we need an old DC hand like Obama choosing Biden?
Obama chose Biden because he knew Old Joe would always make him look good — by contrast. It was the choice of a weak man. We don’t need that.
This link runs through the solar power plant designs to show that some do use a fair amount of water (solar concentrators with steam cooldown). Quote:
“Concentrating solar thermal projects can use a fair amount of water per megawatt-hour, especially if they’re so-called “wet-cooled” projects that use escaping water vapor to keep operating temperatures from getting too high. In California, state policy requires that solar thermal projects use “dry-cooling” technology, which uses air flow instead of water to cool things down.”
http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewire/solar/fact-check-how-much-water-does-solar-power-really-use.html
If Carly is our nominee, Hillary will not get on the stage with her. The Democrats will pick someone else, or there will be some outrage they will get the mob behind to avoid debating Carly. Any bets?
Thanks for this. Ctlaw’s challenge to Carly’s statement is fair, and you providing supporting facts validates the statement she made.
This is difficult work to vet 2 candidates, let alone 10 or 17. It’s a long, and winding road…
No bets, but mob tactics will come into play, no matter who.
Whether those tactics are successful will depend on our candidate.
‘Clean’ coal could mean something different in her parlance – removing mercury emissions, for instance. She probably was not referring to CO2 as the pollutant that was the cause for the ‘cleaning’. Folks who dislike using coal-fired plants aren’t oftentimes, (and maybe not even usually) concerned as much about the CO2 as the other pollutants.
Mr. Hansen provided better data earlier, I failed to see his comment before making mine. My bad.
Wow, what a nice, evocative phrase. Makes me want to hum a tune to go along with it…
Wow, what a nice, evocative phrase. Makes me want to hum a tune to go along with it…
And then there is this phrase too: “just a small town girl, living in a crazy world”, equally evocative. :)
I disagree that Carly looks like she’s trying to be careful. She definitely is being smart, but she throws bombs like “destroys lives and livelihoods” and “self-defeating” and “we don’t tell people the whole truth” and “frankly, ridiculous for the Obama administration…”
Heh, that last one made blood squirt from Couric’s eyes… am I allowed to say that?
That may be true about the electricity production, but don’t those huge solar arrays require quarterly cleaning to keep them running efficiently?
She said some good things, but I wanted her to declare, succinctly, that GLOBAL WARMING (not “climate change”) is not a dire threat, that the science has not given us reason enough to think it’s a problem.
That would be true for everyone but the climate hysterics who’ve managed to have CO2 declared a pollutant. In context, Carly’s point isn’t strictly accurate, even if in reality it is.
But, I’m glad she didn’t try to debate “the science” with the likes of Katie Couric and her audience.
Finally! Someone on our side who understands political gamesmanship.
Destroy is overrated and overused word.
Disagree. Read Dan Hanson’s comments up-thread.
We do need to adapt to “climate change” — whatever that may be, whenever it’s happening. When we use the Left’s language against their argument, we seize territory on their game board.