CNN Bill Weir's Climate Change Tweet - "Mostly True"

Sometimes it's a case of screw it. Bill Weir of CNN succumbed to his inner id and tweeted what he really thought instead of the steady "both sides" false equivalency so embraced by by the main stream media.  

I didn't know CNN allowed their reporters to state facts.

Ok, so, the ad hominem "fucksticks" should have been edited out, but the "Weather is not climate" is a true statement. "willfully ignorant" is a factual state of mind, however it usually requires someone trained in paychosocial therapy to make that assessment. That said, some people know willful ignorance when we see it.  Finally, "Climate doesn't cooperate with Al Gore" is also a true statement as reported by FoxNation. To be fair, 3 our of the 4 assertions in the tweet are true. Before I give my Politifact like ruling, we need to look more deeply into this statement. It's the word "Fucksticks" that is problematic. Should "Fucksticks" be considered only insulting, or is it an accurate depiction of Foxnation's stubborness?

Bill Weir's usage of "fucksticks" isn't exactly an error. "Fuckstick(s)" isn't listed at Dictionary.com, so I had to look for alternatives. The Urban Dictionary is a crowd sourced definer of all things said in the street and in a sense, they would be a better authority on defining "fuckstick" (IMO) than the Oxford Dictionary. Their supporters were more than happy to supply an adequate definition in multiple ways.

8.   Fucksticks
1. An exclamatory obscenity; 2. An insult.

Unfortunately the word choice is insulting, but perhaps a simple apology should be accepted and maybe Weir should take a few days time out to read Working With Emotional Intelligence (pdf summary) and we all should move on. Bill Weir apologizes.

At this point maybe I should stop, but I can't. There are other definitions from other Urban Dictionary contributors that are worth considering:

12.  fuckstick
      1. Another word for moron, dickhead etc. Used to describe someone who is generally clueless.

As someone who has read (pdf) a few studies on climate change, where the main assertion of these studies (since 2004ish) is, "The continuous juggling act journalists engage in, often mitigates against meaningful, accurate, and urgent coverage of the issue of global warming." or more succinctly, you could sum it up as "the studies suggest global warming is real, but journalists confuse their viewers and readers with bullshit false equivalency". Cutting through the climate change deniers' misinformation is a tough business. I can understand the true nature of Bill Weir's frustration. I only wish he found a kinder, gentler way to express it in 140 characters or less.

Crude or not, Bill Weir's annoyance is palpable in the original tweet, therefore a correct usage of the word and that led me to another definition:

13. Fuscksticks!

      1. A word used to express total annoyance

      2. A word used to describe those who have caused you total annoyance.

No doubt, Bill Weir was annoyed, so this aspect of the word's definition was accurately applied in the tweet.

This final definition I selected (yes, there are about 20 other definitions that I didn't include here - they were redundant) shows the most accuracy of Bill Weir's word choice.

24.  fuckstick

one who has all the qualities of a dumbass and will defend his convictions, even when proven wrong by others

So, wealthy climate change deniers can't get more scientists to publish flawed studies to support their denial, but they can get reporters to be their tools messengers. Some reporters object to this because they can read the studies that show weather isn't climate and Al Gore has nothing to do with climate change other than to talk about it. Climate change (Global Warming) has the general consensus of the scientific community that it is happening and that human activity influences climate change. This makes this particular definition of "fucksticks" an accurate use of the word.

My Ruling

Three of the four aspects of Bill Weir's tweet are accurate and the fourth aspect was an accurate depiction of a crude word; a poor word choice. The crudity cannot be rewarded, so this tweet cannot be rated as "True"; but this tweet is totally understandable. Therefore, I rate Bill Weir's tweet as "Mostly True".