Paging Doctor Karl, Doctor Karl to the white courtesy phone please

Hat tip to Anthony Watts writing at Watts Up With That:

More flubs at the top of the climate food chain - this time NCDC�s Karl
It has been one of those days�first the GISS data train wreck in apparently reusing last months temperatures to make this months �hottest October ever� announcement, now we find that the director of The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) may not have the goods for the PhD he goes by. He�s about to become the president of the American Meteorological Society. Interesting times - Anthony

Anthony then quotes from this post at Planet Gore / National Review Online:

Dr. Pepper, Dr. J, Dr. Karl . . .
Well, this testimony, submitted to the House of Representatives is strange, what with �Dr. Tom Karl� � now the lead author of the U.S. government�s Climate Change Science Program assessment being prepared to support EPA regulation of carbon dioxide � having never earned an academic Ph.D.

That�s according to North Carolina State University, that is, which is the school from which I found a Karl resume claiming a Ph.D., earned �1977-78�. I first found this on a Johns Hopkins website but, after asking Karl�s employer NOAA to clarify where the �Dr.� title they serially tout was earned, that CV has been taken down (but not before I saved the file, of course). NOAA wouldn�t answer my question, but only sniffed that if I can point to them claiming Karl has a Ph.D. � as opposed to just promoting him as �Dr. Karl� apparently on the basis of a 2002 honorary doctorate of humane letters � I should tell them.

The thing is, I have just received documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing that Mr. Karl is indeed styled as �Dr. Karl� on the express basis of having earned that 1978 NCSU Ph.D., as a proposed �co-investigator� in an application for a million-dollar-plus federal grant. The grant was awarded. No word yet whether the U.S. mail was involved in the process.

The question about the U.S. Mail deals with Title 18 United States Code Chapter 63 � 1341. Frauds and swindles. OWIE! Karl did receive an honorary degree:

Tom Karl, Ph.D., received his B.S. degree in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in 1973, his Masters Degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1974, and he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from North Carolina State University in 2002.

But according to WikiPedia:

Doctor of Humane Letters
The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (Latin: Litterarum humanarum doctor; D.H.L.; or L.H.D.) is always conferred as an honorary degree, usually to those who have distinguished themselves in areas other than science (these normally receive the Doctor of Science), government (these often receive a Doctor of Laws degree), religion (these often receive a Doctor of Divinity degree) or literature (these often receive a Doctor of Letters degree).

Emphasis mine -- perfect! You could not pick a better way to express the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming Political Bullshit...