By popular request, a “festive” exchange from this afternoon’s Cavuto in honor of WaPo’s new poll showing growing skepticism about the topic du jour. Growing, that is, but still mild: Fully 72 percent believe in global warming (down from 80 percent last year), including 71 percent of independents. Even a majority of Republicans believe in it, although that percentage has dipped from 76 percent all the way down to 54. Imagine what the numbers would look like if television news hadn’t completely blacked out news of Climategate.

Incidentally, am I hallucinating or did Ed Begley choose this week of all weeks to tout the virtues of peer-reviewed research? Because, dude:

But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the “peer review” process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.

And that is precisely what we find.

In response to an article challenging global warming that was published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to “rid themselves of this troublesome editor”-hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II’s knights. Michael Mann replies:

I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.

Note the circular logic employed here. Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by scientific articles in “legitimate peer-reviewed journals.” But if a journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition not “legitimate.”

Shockingly, the Climategate e-mails aren’t even a factor in this discussion. No matter. Let the angry finger-jabbing begin!