On Capitol Hill, getting a celebrity to appear at a committee hearing is usually a big deal. Lawmakers know that reporters will cover an event with a popular entertainer or athlete, which in turn generates interest in whatever it is the committee wants to talk about.
The point, of course, is to use the celebrity’s notoriety for publicity purposes, not policy purposes. Unfortunately, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, seems confused about this. Inhofe — probably the senator most hostile to any kind of environmental protections — is holding a hearing today on “the role of science in environmental policy making.”
As Think Progress noted, Inhofe’s expert witness is none other than Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton.
Crichton, in case it isn’t clear, writes fiction. So why did Inhofe extend the invitation? Because Crichton’s latest book, State of Fear, fits in nicely with the GOP environmental agenda. Consider this synopsis:
[Fictitious scientist Nicholas] Drake is frustrated by the public’s lack of fear about global warming and, hence, lack of enthusiasm for funding NERF [the fictitious environmental group Drake runs]. To remedy the situation, he plans a high-profile conference on “abrupt climate change,” a phenomenon that is essentially fabricated. To make sure folks are good and scared about the imaginary threat, he contracts with the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) — …a sophisticated, highly coordinated, techno-savvy worldwide terrorist network of dreadlocked hippies — to create a series of floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis that will devastate the world on the eve of the conference.
Of course, the science behind Crichton’s book is demonstrably false, but that’s hardly grounds for criticism — it is, after all, fiction. I’m more troubled by a senator and key committee chairman relying on a novelist for advice on shaping federal environmental policies.
Are we going to start relying on writers for E.R. to help shape health care policy? Maybe the writer for The 40-Year-Old Virgin to discuss to discuss abstinence-only education?