but that 's because so few of them believed in the reality of global warming in the first place . It used to be said that we were all entitled to our own opinions , but not entitled to our own facts . No more . In modern America , we choose our facts to fit our opinions . Michael Barone drove this point home in a 2008 column for the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute : Americans ' views of the economy are increasingly a function of voting behavior or party loyalty , rather than the other way around . In early 2006 , a time of vibrant economic growth , 56 percent of Republicans said the economy was excellent or good , while only 28 percent of independents and 23 percent of Democrats agreed . Maybe Republicans were just doing better than Democrats ? No -- the partisan divergence held true among Republicans and Democrats even of the same income level . The same effect showed up in reverse in the 1990s . Under President Clinton , Democrats were more likely to assess the economy positively than were Republicans of the same income level . Media critics
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- I asked a knowledgeable environmentalist earlier this week : `` How big a story is the CRU scandal in your community ? '' `` The what ? '' `` The e-mails hacked at the Climate Research Unit at -LSB- the British -RSB- East Anglia University ? '' `` Ah . '' He smiled . `` It says something that I did n't immediately recognize what you were talking about . I suppose on my side we 'd take the same view that the Pentagon took of Abu Ghraib : a few bad apples on the night shift . '' Meanwhile , on the right , the story is the biggest scandal since the leak of the Pentagon Papers . Seemingly unperturbed by the CRU embarrassment , President Obama will shortly jet to Copenhagen to pledge reductions in U.S. carbon emissions . The Democratic majority in Congress continues to work on a cap-and-trade bill . At the same time , Gallup has recorded an amazing 20 point drop since summer 2008 in the number of Republicans who believe that global warming is occurring . Among Republican conservatives , the drop is slightly smaller -- 13 points --