Obama mocks Perry: Was his climate change dig 'outrageous'?

President Obama is being criticized by some on the Right for his criticism of Rick Perry&#039;s climate change skepticism. — (Image credit: Mark Wilson/)

Rick Perry's campaign lashed out at President Obama on Monday after the president mocked the Texas governor's skepticism about man-made climate change. At a California fundraiser, Obama said "fact-based" voters should pick him over Perry and his fellow GOP candidates. "I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately?" Obama said. "You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change." A Perry aide called the remark "outrageous." Is Perry being thin-skinned, or did Obama cross the line?

Obama should be ashamed: This tasteless insult shows, once again, that Obama is a "hateful hack" who "is unworthy of the office he holds," says Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media. Droughts and wildfires happen no matter what people do, yet Obama is turning Texas' lost homes, livestock, and even lives "into a craven partisan hit on the state's governor. What an idiot. What a partisan jacksnipe."

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Come on. The president has to counter GOP attacks: When Republican debate spectators are "booing gay soldiers and cheering for the sick to die," says Alex Moore at Death + Taxes, Obama must realize that "this is bound to be a long, nasty campaign." Perry is "the most formidable threat" against Obama, and by clinging to his climate-change denial while his state suffers historic wildfires leaves, he's leaving himself open to attack. "They say the best defense is a good offense."

And there's plenty more where this came from: One "big luxury" for Obama, as the incumbent, is that the GOP primary process will drive his potential opponents to the right, says Michael Crowley at TIME. In Perry's case, that will make it easier to call attention to the contrast between the Texas governor's "preference for theology over science" and the president's own "data-based pragmatism." But this is risky, too; mocking Perry over climate change delights Democrats, but it won't go over well with the many Americans who doubt the scientific consensus on climate change.