Climate sceptic James Delingpole's cheap shot at Newsweek backfires

Climate sceptic James Delingpole's cheap shot at Newsweek backfires

Response from 88-year-old war veteran shoots down attempt to discredit letter published in Newsweek in support of Al Gore

The rent-a-quote climate change sceptic and right-wing, second world war buff, James Delingpole. Photograph: jamesdelingpole.com

For those of you who have not yet stumbled across his oeuvre before, James Delingpole does a nice turn over on the Telegraph blogs as a rent-a-quote climate change sceptic and good all-round right-wing contrarian. He reprises this role each week for the Spectator, which also played host this summer to his penetrating interview with Ian Plimer, the author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – the Missing Science. In addition, Delingpole frequently states that he's something of a second world war buff.

Oh, and, lest we forget, he also recently popped up on C4's When Boris Met Dave as a talking head to reminisce about his days spent with the aforementioned Tory rivals while at Oxford University. He revealed that he was aggrieved not to be invited, unlike his contemporaries, into the Bullingdon Club, or "the Buller" as he longingly describes it.

Now that we've established his credentials to the uninitiated, let's move on to a blog he wrote for the Telegraph this week, entitled "How Al Gore's amen corner Newsweek censored his critics". It's largely a riff on a recent Newsbusters blog post about how Newsweek ran a series of letters supportive of Al Gore the week after he appeared on its front cover.

What upset Newsbusters – which says it is the "leader in documenting, exposing and neutralising liberal media bias" – was that Newsweek had admitted that 74% of the letters it had received about Al Gore had been critical of him and his views about climate change. So why, asked Newsbusters (and, in his echo chamber, Delingpole), did Newsweek only publish positive letters the following week?

To give Newsbusters and Delingpole their dues, it does seem to be a legitimate question. But Delingpole didn't stop there: he also aimed his artillery at a US war veteran who wrote one of the supportive letters published by Newsweek saying that his letter was the worst of the lot.

This is the offending letter sent in by "Lee Bidgood Jr of Gainesville, Florida" that Newsweek chose to publish:

Propaganda by global-warming sceptics and deniers reminds me of 1944, when as an army officer I saw living skeletons in striped pyjamas. Horror stories about Nazi concentration camps suddenly rang true. I wondered how intelligent people could commit such atrocities. History records the effectiveness of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. I hope Al Gore and others can prevail over today's anti-science propaganda.

Strong words, indeed. So strong, in fact, that it led Delingpole to imply that the letter's author might, in fact, be a fraud:

Gosh I do hope they [Newsweek] got their fact checkers on to that one. Otherwise, I'd suspect that this was the concoction of some young eco-freak who wasn't even born in '44 using the Holocaust and the respect we grant war veterans to make a cheap political point.

That is quite some slur – even if delivered by inference – to aim at a war veteran, but especially when trying to make your own "cheap political point". So much so that you would have thought that Delingpole – a self-confessed second world war aficionado, remember – might have done some fact-checking of his own.
Alas, evidently not – as I discovered when I approached Lee Bidgood Jr to ask him if we he wished to respond. This is what he had to say:

The "writer" [of that blog] seems unworthy of a reply. However, for your information: I was born in 1921, took advanced ROTC 1937-41 which made me eligible for a commission when I reached 21 or war was declared. The latter happened first. I was commissioned a 2nd Lt, 2 April, 1942, ASN 0-441619 in the Coast Artillery Corps.

Trained at Camp Hulen, Texas, in AA, and was assigned to the 436th AAA BN AW SM Promoted to 1st Lt 11 August 1942.

Participated in seven campaigns: Fr Morocco-Algeria; Algeria-Tunisia; Algeria-Sicily; Rome-Arno; southern France; central Europe; Rhineland. Two invasions: Fr Morocco; Sicily.

Promoted to Capt. 1 March 1945. Discharged 4 February 1946.

The scene I described for Newsweek occurred when our Battalion was in convoy from southern France heading up to the front. A train was transporting concentration camp inmates from somewhere in France to Germany. Our artillery or aircraft had knocked out the engine, derailing some of the cars and spilling the inmates. Newsweek shortened my account of the incident. Much later our unit at war's end was in bivouac in Bavaria, when we smelled death after the wind shifted. It was Dachau.

Since retiring from a middle-level management position (an endangered species) in a large corporation, I have been an environmental activist with prime emphasis on climate change and what we must do about it. I now live in Gainesville, Florida, in a retirement complex.

Memo to Delingpole: by all means have a pop at wacko communist alarmists such as myself – I'm sure you will – but probably best to leave 88-year-old war veterans, even if they do happen to be concerned about climate change, out of it next time.

Link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/nov/19/climate-sceptic-james-delingpole