Earlier I wrote about the ridiculous spectacle that the State of the Union address has become. This is the red carpet event of the year in DC. Sleazy Beltway operators will be crawling over each other to use the event (and each other) for their personal advantage.

Case in point. Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) is bringing Bill Nye the climate change fanaticism guy as his date to nerd homecoming.

Because Bill Nye is where Bridenstine got his Science Education.

— rmc (@Thelast_try) January 18, 2018

Why would a Republican invite one of the most unjustifiably condescending, anti-GOP nitwits to the big dance? Because Bridenstine is President Trump’s nominee to head NASA and Bill Nye is now the figurehead of The Planetary Society, a non-profit that promotes space exploration and science. The Planetary Society was founded by actual scientists and space exploration specialists Carl Sagan, Louis Friedman, and Bruce Murray. Today it seems that the Society sees greater fundraising potential having a glorified birthday party clown as its public face.

Some journalists are still laboring under the false assumption that Bill Nye has scientific credentials.

The invitation seems designed to bolster Bridenstine’s scientific credentials as he struggles to get the Senate votes necessary for confirmation. Opponents have charged that the former military pilot lacks sufficient background for the NASA job and criticized his positions on climate science.

Sadly, Nye’s position as CEO of The Planetary Society—and probably more importantly—his celebrity and outspoken leftist orthodoxy means he has some influence over Senators who will be voting on whether to confirm Bridenstine as NASA Administrator. Bridenstine seems to have no particularly convincing credentials to be space boss and he’s courting a guy with no particularly convincing credentials to be a thought leader to help make his case. It is Washington reality-show phoniness at it’s finest.

Also, being a Republican, Bridenstine is naturally a bigot and homophobe, whereas Nye has embraced the pseudoscience of gender fluidity. Nye is receiving some blowback for palling around with Bridenstine from climate nuts and social justice warriors.

Nye is also a role model for my grandkids and he will be ‘endorsing’ Bridenstine who is notoriously homophobic. Disappointing. @HRC pic.twitter.com/F3KhwEKMvD

— Dava (@Dava87281476) January 19, 2018

The MoveOn petition to get Nye to back out of attending the State of the Union will undoubtedly be as successful as any online petition in acheiving its goal, which is to harvest dumb people’s email addresses for fundraising purposes.

Bridenstine’s bromance with Nye will probably be successful as well and earn him a few confirmation votes from fence sitters. Plus Bill Nye gets to look and feel like he’s important. Everybody wins.