Speaking of the senior embarrassment from Oklahoma, Think Progress notes today:

In this morning’s USA Today, Sen. James Inhofe (R., OK) complained:

“Despite the lack of a scientific consensus to warrant such measures, climate change alarmists – in the heat of the summer for the scariest effect – are promoting mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions.”

In fact, President Bush was one of those “alarmists.” He promised mandatory caps on CO₂ emissions during his first campaign. In the Bush Environmental Plan – dated 9/29/00 – the president vowed:

“[If elected], Governor Bush will work to…establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide.”

Inhofe has dismissed every scientific study on climate change not sponsored by the Energy Industry as a "scare tactic." Could that be because some forty-odd of the organizations "disputing" global climate change are all funded by ExxonMobil, and Inhofe himself received $290,000 from oil and gas companies (including ExxonMobil) for his 2002 re-election campaign?

Inhofe has certainly given them what they paid for:

In a folksy summation, Inhofe again called the notion that humans are causing global warming “a hoax,” and said that those who believe otherwise are “hysterical people, they love hysteria. We’re dealing with religion.” Having thus dismissed some 2,000 scientists, their data sets and temperature records, and evidence of melting glaciers, shrinking islands, and vanishing habitats as so many hysterics, totems, and myths, Inhofe vowed to stick up for the truth, as he sees it, and “fight the battle out on the Senate floor.”

Seated in the front row of the audience, former ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol looked on approvingly.

Not just a dangerous idiot, but also a tool.