My friend Chris Mooney has pulled a passage from Fred Barnes’ book Rebel-in-Chief describing President Bush’s meeting with fiction writer Michael Crichton about global warming:

Though he didn’t say so publicly, Bush is a dissenter on the theory of global warming. To the extent it’s a problem, Bush believes it can be solved by technology. He avidly read Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel State of Fear, whose villain falsifies scientific studies to justify draconian steps to curb global warming. Crichton himself has studied the issue extensively and concluded that global warming is an unproven theory and that the threat is vastly overstated. Early in 2005, political adviser Karl Rove arranged for Crichton to meet with Bush at the White House. They talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement. The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more.

And the administration’s postmodern approach to “truth” rolls forward. If you can’t find scientists who agree with you, get a hack novelist! You really can’t make this stuff up. (Mooney’s critique of State of Fear is here.)