The trouble with talking points as opposed to, say, personal inquiry, is that they leave you saying things that don’t do your image much good. For example, per ClimateWire today:

“All I know is, 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring,” Huntsman told Time. “If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer, we’d listen to them.”

Ummm. “Occurring”, “causing”. “Occurring”, “causing”. Something’s not connecting in this comparison, but I just can’t put my finger on it.

And anyway that talking point is either a misquote of a recent scam too many fell for, or just made up and regardless silly because, really, no one disputes that climate changes, always has, always will, that’s what it does. No one, that is, except for people who revise history to create ‘smoking gun!’ Hockey Stick graphs and the like.

But, ok. 90% of my neighbors say leaves covering their lawns are falling from trees. All I know is that if 90% of my neighbors said it was my kids who were spray-painting their garage doors, I’d listen to them.

And if that meant also a severe response with no evidence that it would change the alleged problem the case for which cannot be made — leading to ‘post-normal’ science and calls of ‘consensus’ that it simply must be my kids becasue, after all, those saying that have been making all sorts of claims and looking for ways for decades to get my kids in trouble — like tanning their hides, I’d have child services in my living room in an hour for my lack of judgment and proportion.

Someone send child services to Huntsman’s campaign HQ.