By now, many have read in passing the story of Peter Gleick scandal. ("Gleick is a founder of the liberal Pacific Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an expert on water resources, not climate. Like many left-wingers in irrelevant fields of study, he has irrationally strong feelings about (Man-made) global warming. So, as Gleick has now admitted, he obtained documents from the Heartland Institute under false pretenses–that is, by lying–and published them in hopes of discrediting the Institute."
When Gleick admitted that he impersonated a board member to obtain "internal documents", he released one particularly devastating document that painted the Heartland Institute as an anti-science, pro-business conspirator with the Koch brothers. Apparently, that document was faked by Gleick.
Many commentators have critiqued Gleick’s actions, and in particular, have addressed the question whether at least one of the documents he published–the only significant one, really–was forged by him. Megan McArdle has done an especially good job in this respect. I am not sure whether she was the first person to raise the question of Gleick’s fake document, but she was certainly among the first.
Read this all. It is really, really good:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/global-warming-alarmists-resort-to-hoax.php