Quids, Norman Leahy, and the Sorensen Institute

This began as poking fun at a whack-job video Norman Leahy posted on Tertium Quids. It has evolved into a comment on the intellectual rigor of both and that of the Sorensen Institute. Norman dramatically drew eugenics from the climate change deniers’ (heir of the 9/11 truthers) bag of tricks.

Now it has developed into astonishment that anyone takes much of anything on Tertium Quids seriously. If Norman is too lazy to check his sources, what does that say about his audience? Or is it that he simply doesn’t care about the veracity of a source so long as it supports his agenda? If Norman is too lazy to check his sources, does that indicate a lack of rigor at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership? Leahy is a proud graduate and, as self-proclaimed, “one of Virginia’s most seasoned and respected political bloggers.”

It must be “the award-winning senior marketing creative and public policy professional” that decided that James Corbett is a credible climatology expert. That would be the balding, mid-thirties Canadian who is living paycheck to paycheck teaching English in Japan; a gig a lot of younger unestablished college graduates from Canada take on. Corbett fancies himself an “independent journalist.” Prior to this reinvention as a climate expert, he dabbled in 9/11 truth lore. But, as he told fellow traveler Alex Jones (could be why Corbett’s site has an Austin area phone number), he discovered the internet in 2006. And with the 9/11 truth wave on the ebb, he hitched onto the global warming hoax bandwagon (and is now dipping into the fraudulent central banking system and the New World Order). His site, like his world view, is an aggregation of conspiracy videos and their underlying theories; as Canadian environmental activist Alex Smith described it: “a gathering place for every anti-global warming video (Corbett) can find.” It must fill the solitude of his Okayama, Japan existence.

Either this thin veil of a source is acceptable in Norman Leahy’s paradigm, he knows his audience is gullible enough to accept it, or he’s too lazy to verify his sources. In any case, it doesn’t say much for his Sorensen experience. And it doesn’t say much for Virginia “conservatives.”