Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

Inhofe’s spokesman, Marc Morano, had a reputation as a professional “pit bull,” as Mann later put it, derived from his earlier role promoting the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that had smeared John Kerry’s military record during his 2004 presidential campaign. At the time, Morano was working for a conservative news outlet that was funded in part by the Scaife, Bradley, and Olin Foundations. By 2006, Morano had moved on to “swiftboating” scientists. “You’ve got to name names and you’ve got to go after individuals,” he explained in an interview with the documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner. He seemed to relish making political disagreements personal, taunting and inflaming opponents with a grin in televised showdowns. Morano denounced James Hansen as a “wannabe Unabomber” and Mann as a “charlatan.” He said of the scapegoating, “We had a lot of fun with it.” Morano charged that Mann was part of what he called “the ‘climate con,’ ” which he described as “a lavishly funded climate machine that is lobbying for laws and uses every bit of data or new study to proclaim ‘it’s worse than we thought’ or ‘we must act now.’ ” Morano’s background was in political science, which he studied at George Mason University, not climate science. “I’m not a scientist but I play one on TV,” he joked. Nonetheless, he asserted authoritatively that “man-made global warming fears are a grand political narrative, not science.”