WASHINGTON — Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s audience chuckled last week when he argued in a speech that climate change is a “total fraud.” The audience response was so strong that Rohrabacher has decided to take his routine on the road.
“People have been laughing for years at the fact that I’m a House Science Committee member who doesn’t believe in global warming,” said Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). “Although I’m not sure why they think it’s so funny, I’m also not about to let a campaign fundraising opportunity like this go to waste. After all, I’ve only got a little over a year till the next election.”
Fellow Science Committee member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) says that she expects Rohrabacher to do well as a stand-up comedian since his views on climate change are “pretty much a joke anyway.”
“This is a man who thinks that prehistoric climate change could have been caused by ‘dinosaur flatulence,’” said Johnson. “So no, I don’t think he will have trouble getting people to laugh at him.”
Rohrabacher says that he plans to expand the speech he gave last week into a one-hour routine. However, Rohrabacher admitted that he is unsure of which of his views will make good jokes, since he does not actually think that any of them are funny.
“I remember a lot of people laughed at me when I said that clear-cutting rainforests will reduce greenhouse gas, so I guess that should go in my act,” said Rohrabacher, who plans to introduce a Kill the Rainforest bill in the fall. “Also, I got some good chuckles when I explained that the ice caps were melting because of the sun. That’s a keeper.”
Some followers of the Congressman’s work assumed he had already begun his stand-up career recently when he said about global climate change, “It’s step by step by step, more and bigger control over our lives by higher levels of government. And global warming is that strategy in spades. Our freedom to make our choices on transportation and everything else? No, that’s gotta be done by a government official who, by the way, probably comes from Nigeria because he’s a U.N. government official, not a U.S. government official.”
Rohrabacher, however, was disappointed by the confusion, saying, “No. That was totally serious. At least, it was meant to be. Weird.”
Because his audience last week responded so well to his strained impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rohrabacher plans to spice up his act with more impressions of well-known politicians.
“Maybe I could dress up as President Obama,” said the caucasian Congressman. “Worth a shot, right? Everyone will get the reference, so I don’t see how it could possibly go wrong.”
