An independent panel or NASA or NOAA investigation does seem the right thing to do. But the investigation shouldn’t be about the hacking-let the university worry about that. It should be about the scandalized scientists and their 95% funding coming from government bodies who, it turns out, they essentially extorted by telling them the sky was falling.

I subsequently dinged Senator Boxer for her “we may have a hearing, we may not have a hearing” statement, contrasting it with the University of East Anglia which has appointed an impartial civil servant to investigate the matter already.

At this point, I’m not so sure that Members of Congress and their staffs should be doing the investigating. Perhaps the inspectors general at NASA and NOAA or of some other relevant institution. Or, an independent, credible panel. I’m open to suggestion on how it should be done. But when that probe takes place, it needs to consider the results of the British criminal investigation into the source of the documents. And everyone who follows the ClimateGate controversy should note which of its propagators are saying the e-mails came from hackers and which say it came from an imaginary whistleblower. Intellectual honesty makes a difference.

“But surely there is time for some sort of investigation? This is, after all, the senator who ran a vital committee hearing in 2008 so that an Environmental Protection Agency whistle-blower, who accused the Bush administration of failing to address greenhouse gas emissions appropriately, could have his say.

Boxer’s rigid devotion to rule of law is also admirable. But this is the senator who championed the Military Whistleblower Protection Act and fought for whistle-blowing rights for defense contractor employees (to ferret out bureaucratic waste) and for nurses (to protect patients’ rights).

All of which sound like sensible protections for the truth-seeking citizen. Because taxpayers matter.”

Obviously, Mr. Harsanyi is in my camp on this. The point being–what my larger point was that I stupidly mis-paraphrased, if I may coin the term. I was referring to Mrs. Boxer’s call for this very stuff.

Look, I’m not your other comment-makers. You seem an affable chap and really, I’ve no reason to argue with you. I merely point out–and still come to the conclusion–that this is a huge scandal for the scientific community. If anything, it has undone the cause of understanding climate science, which is a truly complex bit of work. I’m no scientist—I know that. But I too have followed the debate, or what little there has been of one.

I’ve also followed the money and I contend simply that if you really assert that deniers are in big oil’s back pocket–or front for that matter, I can only say follow the money on the AGW side.

Aside from that–I’m not in big oil’s pockets. I’m a guy in California who writes articles about wine and general news stories for publications. But to take lightly–or dismiss–the revelation of these e-mails–is indeed to cling to a faith, and not a reasoning.

Let’s at least allow dissenting voices, yes?

Thanks again. I really do appreciate your writing and your time.

For starters, the entire Justice Department leadership, the ones ushered in with John Ashcroft, nearly resigned over the Bush administration’s surveillance programs in 2004. Furthermore, the controversy prompted a massive legislative debate and substantial changes to the laws governing spying by the US intelligence community. Including blanket liability protections for telecommunications companies so they’d be protected from prosecution for previous law breaking they did on the governments’ behalf. That’s not what I’d call ‘nothing there.’

Second, Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower who started the whole investigation by the Times, first tried to go to DOJ staff and Members of Congress with his concerns, but was rebuffed. In spite of that, sadly, he still did not go through standard whistleblowing channels. And because he did not, he has been the subject of a major investigation on the part of the FBI. He may yet still be prosecuted. He acted knowing that he faced that risk.

Did whoever was rooting around in CRU’s servers put anything close to that on the line? No, they broke into a computer system, harvested files, and then dumped them on a series of blog comment threads much like this one, possibly frustrated with the fact that when a reporter, Paul Hudson at BBC News, received some of the e-mails, he had applied journalistic ethics and standards and didn’t just jump into the e-mail head on and start drawing conclusions.

That was a crime. Put that asterisk next to your ClimateGate. Because right now, manufacturers of conservative conventional wisdom are trying to deny that a crime occurred at all by inventing an imaginary CRU whistleblower who they can’t produce.

My opinion on the CRU people is that they’re not bought and paid for by massive energy corporations with a vested interest in denying climate change and proposed modifications to our energy economy that those companies currently monopolize with their 19th century technologies. Many of them draw university salaries that are underwritten by public funds. If their work were so biased and wrong, the GOP had close to 10 years in the majority of both houses of Congress in which they could have deeply probed their work and cut off the spigot. Fortunately for America, and the rest of the world, they did not. Fortunately for America, a lot of politicians, supported by the leadership of people like Al Gore who spent 20-plus years toiling in the public interest in Congress and the White House, agree that beginning a transition to a renewable energy economy is in our nation’s interest.

When the right reveals something that the left has done, it’s “a crime” and “theft.” Sorry–you simply cannot have it both ways, no? The e-mails were hacked and that can technically, of course, be considered a crime. But it also revealed the truth about attempts to cover up what is a conspiracy. And that’s the best thing it is.

As for Mr. Roston’s assertion that deniers are “oil and carbon backed,” I’m just interested in your opinion as to what the “scientists” at the CRU are? They are “backed” in some cases up to 95% of their income, grants and all else, by the UN and the IPCC–whose entire stated mission was to “reveal the damage done by AGW.” Since that is the essence of the question–whether or not global warming is anthropogenic, and the IPCC has simply decided that it is—along with a LOT of politicians (Al Gore, I believe, was buying carbon credits from a company in which he owned stock).

Now–is that the definition of the pot and the kettle—or am I missing something?