As David Harsanyi writes in the Denver Post, “It’s mildly ironic, though not very surprising, that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has a mercurial sense of ethical responsibility when it comes to whistleblowing”:

Though the Climategate whistle-blower/hacker has given us invaluable perspective into the science of global warming, something we’re about to spend potentially trillions of dollars combating, she seems less than thankful for the information.

Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.

“You call it ‘Climategate’; I call it ‘E-mail-theft-gate,’” she said during a committee meeting. “Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I’m looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public.”

….

“We may well have a hearing on this, we may not. We may have a briefing for senators, we may not,” Boxer said. “Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated.

“This is a crime,” Boxer said.

E-mail-theft-gate? I agree. But could this possibly be the same Boxer who once sponsored the The Military Whistleblower Protection Act.

The same Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer who held hearings over a Environmental Protection Agency whistleblower who claimed the Bush administration had an unwillingness to address greenhouse-gas emissions.

The same Boxer who believes in whisteblowing on defense contractors and for nurses?

Many of those seem like reasonable protections. How about protecting the people who exposed potential scientific fraud funded by government?

Gosh, whatever happened to Babs’ vaunted sense of “Speaking Truth To Power?”

(Flashback illustration above to a period when Time magazine situationally believed in whistleblowers as well.)

Update: Ace responds, “No, Senator Boxer, I Think We’ll Stick With ‘ClimateGate.’”

Update: “Barbara Boxer: Lincoln’s Assassination in Ford’s Theater Was Really About Whether or Not Booth Got His Gun Legally”, Bob Owens quips.

Meanwhile, Investor’s Business Daily paraphrases the senator’s cognitive dissonance thusly: “Can global warming please be true? I’ve worked so hard for it.”

Elsewhere, Allahpundit adds, “leaks that help the left are always about the information obtained, leaks that hurt the left are always about the leak’s illegality — but it’s amazing to see someone as prominent as Boxer stoop to it.”

Hey, it’s as good of a modified limited hangout as any.

Related: On MSNBC, Boxer creates, saves or invents 30 million new Medicaid beneficiaries.

Country, best of hands, etc.