Buck suggested earlier this week that he agrees with Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) view that global warming is a hoax, telling a supporters in Colorado, “Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.” Buck, who is in a tight race with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), has since revised those remarks.

Responding to Buck’s comments, League of Conservation Voters Senior Vice President for Public Affairs Tony Massaro told reporters today on a conference call that the candidate was “backpedaling, or Buck-pedaling,” from his climate positions. “We actually don’t know where he stands because he seems to stand in multiple places at one time depending on who he talks to,” Massaro said. “This is not a person who has consistent values and therefore doesn’t have any values.”

I called Buck’s campaign office got clarification on his position. Owen Loftis, Buck’s spokesperson said, “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Buck has emerged as a top target for environmentalists as the midterm elections approach. Yesterday, the League of Conservation Voters released a web video criticizing him and the environmental group released a television ad targeting him today.

The problem: It was a hoax, actually marked as a satire, as Klein blogged earlier today. Ledeen apologized.

[H]e got me, and lots of others. It worked because it’s plausible.

Here’s some of what Ledeen and Limbaugh considered plausible:

The subject of this paper, which totaled 44 pages, was American government. Entitled Aristocracy Reborn, this paper chronicled the long struggle of the working class against, as Obama put it, “plutocratic thugs with one hand on the money and the other on the government.”

In the paper, in which only the first ten pages were given to the general media, Obama decries the plight of the poor: “I see poverty in every place I walk. In Los Angeles and New York, the poor reach to me with bleary eyes and all I can do is sigh.”

Without spending too much more time on this, it seems a piece of the persistent rumors that, surely, the young Barack Obama must have relied on smarter white radicals to write his first memoir.

UPDATE: Via Media Matters, I see that Limbaugh discovered the hoax midway through the show, and used what used to be known as the “fake but accurate” defense.

The only problem? The whole thing was a hoax.

TPM has compiled the relevant documents. They’re good for a chuckle.

Update: Kate Sheppard attended the announced press conference, and instead of Donohue, she found prankster Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. A Chamber representative was present — but in protest.

Who was it that challenged those emails? Nobody. They go unchallenged to this day. Why? Because they are authentic. Are you challenging them? On what basis? Because they were poorly written?

The answers are: Politico, because they’re obvious fakes, because they’re obvious fakes, because they’re obvious fakes, and “yes.” The fact that neither the Kenyan government nor the Obama campaign never commented on WND’s story should give pause to conspiracy theorist, not hope.

On his own site, Farah writes that he “strongly suspects” that the Kenyan “birth certificate” fronted at WND yesterday and Sunday is not real.

“I don’t know any SEALs,” said Sarosdy, 81, speaking by phone from his home in Pensacola, Fla. “I have no idea who transmitted that.”

Sarosdy said he received the e-mail from a friend – he thinks it was another retired military officer – a few days after the stand-off ended, he said. He thought it was interesting, so he forwarded it to a couple dozen other people.

And so another hoax email about Barack Obama was born.

Yesterday, FOX News Vice President John Moody wrote: “If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Sen. McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

I guess the race is over.

UPDATE: My TWI colleague Matt DeLong smartly ties this story to the case of Charles Stuart, who in 1989 murdered his pregnant wife and heightened racial tension by blaming a nonexistent black man. Obviously, the scale is very different here, but the comparison is still apt.

Also, KDKA reports that according to a Pittsburgh police commander, Ashley Todd will be facing charges.