In keeping with the downsized nature of the newspaper industry, this year’s annual conference of editorial writers here in Salt Lake City is a downsized affair. No big-name politicians like Mike Huckabee or big-time TV journalists like Juan Williams, both of whom were there last year in Little Rock. The biggest name speaker we’ve gotten so far is the mayor of Salt Lake, Ralph Becker, who is a Democrat in a state that doesn’t have too many of them. And we have no presidential library to visit this time. (This is also due to the fact that Utah hasn’t had a President ever, which, given the nature of Utah politics, may not be that bad a thing.)

Helped by the breathtaking beauty of the Salt Lake area, the editorial writers soldier on in the face of the dismal state of their industry, discussing issues like health care and energy, instead of the Mormon impact on Utah you’d think would be an obvious candidate.

I got my two cents in at a climate change panel, when Kimball Rasmussen, CEO of a local utility company, completely misrepresented the research of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to make it seem that the Nobel-winning organization wasn’t quite sure about the heating trend of the planet, the responsibility of humans in causing it, or the disproportional impact of countries like the United States. Unfortunately for him, I had interviewed Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, some months ago for The Progressive.

When I challenged Rasmussen on his distortions, he hemmed and hawed. But the damage to his side was done. When you catch these guys in a blatant lie, they really squirm.