Twitchy Asks The Tough Questions: What Kind Of Idiot Would Want To Save Bees?

Twitchy was all a-twitching on Sunday over the latest outrage perpetrated by the boy king Neville Chamberlain Obama, who on Friday had announced the creation of something called the Pollinator Health Task Force, a panel to study the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder among the nation's honey bees. Because this action involves two words that wingnuts hate more than any others – “science" and “Obama" – one of the nine writers who staffs this particular wingnut Superfund site had to give up a quiet Sunday of huddling over the comics page, downing a two-liter of 7-Up while trying to sound out the big words in “Hagar the Horrible," in order to curate the tweets of outrage. Twitchy: it's Storify for people who lack functioning brain stems.

Colony Collapse Disorder, the name given to the phenomenon of honey bees up and disappearing from their hives at a high rate, is actually a serious problem. Honey bees are needed to pollinate many of the world's crops, so if the bees disappear, there could be food shortages, the agricultural economy could collapse, and prices could skyrocket, though since we're talking mostly about fruits and nuts and other healthy things, we suppose it makes sense that wingnuts wouldn't care. Scientists haven't pinpointed one cause of CCD, but recent research from Harvard pointed to neonicotinoids, a particular kind of pesticide. Last December Europe even instituted a two-year ban on neonicotinoids to see if the colony collapse rate will become lower, because Europe, for all its faults, at least understands that science is often useful.

The task force, to be co-chaired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and head of the Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy, will coordinate federal research of the problem of not just honey bee disappearance, but also that of other creatures, like butterflies, that pollinate other crops and wildflowers in our ecosystems. It's the sort of crisis you would expect your government to address if it is interested in heading off minor little problems like the country at some point in the future struggling to produce enough food to feed its citizens.

Naturally, the wingnuts think it's all a distraction from Iraq, or Benghazi, or Lois Lerner's disappearing emails, or the U.S. blowing that match against Portugal, or something.

Yr Wonkette is pretty sure the president can multi-task. It's what you expect of a president. Why, we bet Obama can work on this bee problem, play a round of golf, send troops to Iraq, and sex up the First Lady before lunch. The wingnuts just aren't used to it, since the last Republican president couldn't successfully eat a pretzel and watch a baseball game at the same time.

Twitchy is right about one thing: This is beyond parody.

[ Twitchy ]