...or has it become decidedly chilly in East Anglia?

Nothing is worse for Liberals than to lose the moral high ground. While the Right stands for profit, Liberals stand for compassion. The Conservatives believe in drilling gaping holes in our forests; Lefties stand with the woodland creatures. The Right manufactures fisted gloves. The Left has the olive branch concession. Them, swords; us, plowshares. It was, therefore, a serious blow to our lofty opinion of ourselves to learn that our team, aka, the good guys could be just as devious and underhanded as the other team.

Climate scientists at East Anglia University have been outed as having shaded the truth. Not content to provide honest clinical data as to the man-made effects of greenhouse gases, the boys and girls of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University also manipulated data to hide holes in their theories and subverted efforts to publish scientific data that contradicted their opinions. Sort of the scientific equivalent of Fox News.

Except scientists aren't supposed to do that! Forget the Bush Administration's eight year effort to edit and redact every scientific study to conform to their agenda. They're Conservatives! You expect them to cheat. We're the good guys. We tell the inconvenient truth. We print the bad with the good and let the science speak for itself. We don't lose the pages that contradict the findings we were hoping for. Our side doesn't believe that we have all the answers or that, in the wrong hands, contrary findings will be misinterpreted. The other guys do that.

Well, it appears that feet of clay is bipartisan after all. The emails hacked from the scientists at East Anglia establish that, at the end of the day, we're no better than they are. The stolen correspondence doesn't negate the preponderance of evidence that the earth is warming but good luck selling that story now. And so, as the polar ice becomes the surf on Maui and the skiing season at St. Moritz is measured in hours, remember being on the side of the angels doesn't mean it's OK to make a deal with the devil. Or, all that separates us from Michelle Malkin is a really bad make-up job.