Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a fool. He nevertheless thinks extremely highly of himself. His vanity is only one component of his clown show. To borrow a line from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” it’s a wonder he still knows how to breathe.
Heritage Foundation scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth contributed the latest episode in Whitehouse’s long-running Looney Tunes saga when she testified on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee on “the real price of fossil fuels” (hearing posted here). As Director of Heritage’s Energy and Climate Center, Furchtgott-Roth testified on the real cost of Biden’s energy agenda.
Whitehouse posed a line of questions that sought to discredit Furchtgott-Roth on an ad hominem (or ad feminam) basis. The ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy in the context of public policy arguments. However, Furchtgott-Roth came ready to rumble. In the event, Whitehouse played Elmer Fudd to Furchtgott-Roth’s wascally wabbit. She turned Whitehouse’s shotgun blasts back on Whitehouse himself.
The New York Post reported the highlights:
Heritage Foundation economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth took a dig at Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) private beach club membership during a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, alluding to allegations that all the members of the ultra-exclusive Rhode Island club are white.
The think tank scholar made the comment during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on fossil fuels, after Whitehouse – the chairman of the panel – attacked Furchtgott-Roth’s credibility over her ties to the fossil fuel industry.
“I don’t have the benefit of being able to rely on a family fortune made in the Minnesota gas business, or having my spouse’s family fortune come from United Gas,” Furchtgott-Roth said while being questioned by Whitehouse, referencing the senator’s own familial ties to the fossil fuel industry.
“And The Heritage Foundation is a club that anyone can join, not just white people. During 2021, it had hundreds of thousands of individual, foundation and corporate supporters representing every state in the United States,” Furchtgott-Roth added.
The remark was a shot at scrutiny Whitehouse has faced over his decades-long membership in the allegedly all-white Newport-based Bailey’s Beach Club.
Whitehouse also sought to discredit Furchtgott-Roth for her reservations on the climate madness. Furchtgott-Roth stuffed a carrot in Whitehouse’s shotgun as she held up a copy of Steven Koonin’s book Unsettled:
“Scientists disagree on the human component of global warming. And in this book, Unsettled by Steve Koonin, who was Under Secretary of Energy [he was Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science] under President Obama, and who taught for 30 years at CalTech and has a PhD in physics from MIT, he says that, ‘It is uncertain how much human activity affects global warming. The case is unsettled,’ and I’m no better scientist than he is.”
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