During the August 3 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity declared that while “Al Gore is unhinged” for warning of the threat posed by global warming, Pat Robertson, host of Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, is “sane” despite having announced that the recent record-breaking heat “is making a convert out of me” on global warming.
Robertson had been a self-described skeptic on global warming, but on the August 3 edition of The 700 Club, he announced that the intensity of recent heat waves has convinced him that global warming is real and a threat, adding, “We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels” because "[i]f we are contributing to the destruction of this planet, we need to do something about it." Hannity asserted that while “Pat's a good man,” he is “dead wrong on this one.” After announcing that “Al Gore is unhinged” while discussing how liberals have “politicized” the “whole global-warming debate,” Hannity declared that Robertson, despite now saying he believes in the real threat of global warming, is “sane.”
Numerous conservative pundits have previously characterized Gore as mentally unstable or “insane,” as Media Matters for America has documented. Tucker Carlson has labeled Gore “a wild-eyed religious nut" whose “religion is the environment”; Ann Coulter has called Gore "clinically insane"; and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker described Gore as being "one slice short of a loaf," though she subsequently told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that she wouldn't “go quite that far” as to say that Gore “has lost it.” Matthews himself said that Gore developed "a psychological problem" after his defeat in the 2000 presidential election.
From the August 3 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
ALAN COLMES (co-host): Finally, tonight, Pat Robertson's been converted. The conservative Christian broadcaster said today that the current wave of scorching temperatures across the country has made him a believer in global warming. He said it on The 700 Club today that, quote, “We really need to address the burning of fossils fuels. It's getting hotter and the ice caps are melting. And there's a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.” End quote. And this week the heat index has hit 115 degrees on the East Coast. The 76-year-old Robertson told viewers that the heat wave was, quote, “the most convincing evidence I have seen on global warming in long time.” Less than a year ago, Robertson declared that natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina might be signs that the biblical apocalypse is nearing. So now he has converted over to my side of global warming.
HANNITY: You know what's funny? I see how the whole global-warming debate, everyone's politicized the whole thing. It's funny. When you go back to the first Earth Day, all of your liberal friends --
COLMES: My liberal friends. Yes. Me and my liberal friends.
HANNITY: Your liberal friends. They were holding up signs that said “The Coming Ice Age.” If you look at the history of temperatures, there's a natural ebb and flow to all of this.
COLMES: Yeah.
HANNITY: And I think Al Gore is unhinged.
COLMES: What does that have to do with what we're talking about? You use it as an excuse to take a shot at Al Gore.
HANNITY: Absolutely. Unhinged.
COLMES: And now it turns out -- it just turns out that Pat Robertson is going to be in the next Al Gore film based on what we just saw.
HANNITY: Listen. Well, I'll tell you this: Pat's a good man, but he's dead wrong on this one.
COLMES: All right. Is he unhinged?
HANNITY: No. He's sane.
