Rep Nick Rahall (D-WV), in answering questions posed by a newspaper, makes the most appropriate analogy on global warming I think I’ve heard.  And, he did it unwittingly.

Climate change — to deny it exists, to just put your head in the sand and, ‘oh no, it doesn’t exist, what are you talking about,’ is about like standing on the floor of Macy’s during the month of December and claiming Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

Yes.  It is exactly like that.  Everyone knows Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist other than in the imagination of children, and of course in the spirit of the holiday season.  But he’s not, you know, real.

But saying that in Macy’s at Christmastime would be very unpopular. (And, as Warren Mayer points out, would get in the way of making money off the myth.)

And being popular is more important than being right when it comes to elections.

Hat tip Coyote Blog.