Brokaw's MTP disgrace with Gore

When I heard Al Gore's interview today on Meet the Press, I got hotter than the California wildfires. My first thought was, "And people wonder why Al Gore declined to run for president again in '04 and this year."

The questions and bias in Tom Brokaw's interview were so blatant and rankly partisan that for a moment I thought I'd tuned into the Faux News Channel. But, nope, it was NBC's Meet the Press, and institution that's going to sink fast if this is what we can expect from Brokaw the rest of the way until election day. I find myself missing Tim Russert more and more with each passing Sunday.

And my second thought after hearing the interview was that Al Gore is a bigger man than me. Here are a few excerpts:

Let me ask you about your attitude towards [sic] politics these days. I was a little surprised. You're a man who was in politics at the highest level in this country: in the House of Representatives; in the Senate; Vice President for eight years and yet you said recently, "What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply." Is that the right kind of signal to send to the young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in the political decisions that we're making this year? And young people who want to get into the political arena look to Al Gore and he said "it's all about trivia and nonsense."

Congratulations to Brokaw for making Al Gore seem like he's trashing our political system - a sort of Karl Rove on the left. What a joke.

However, Brokaw was only getting warmed up. The worst was yet to come. (By the way, I'd expect a professional broadcaster like Brokaw to use the more grammatically favorable toward, but I guess that's being a little nit picky for a man who's been in broadcasting longer than I've been alive.)

Brokaw then proceeded to wade into the GOP talking-points pool with this whopper:

With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I can already hear your critics and I don't do Rush Limbaugh, so I will not attempt to. But I can hear him saying on radio, "Well there's Prince Albert. There he was, 25 years hanging out with lobbyists, raising big money, then he lost and now he's above the process, calling it trivial and nonsense."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will never run for political office. Because had that been me sitting in Al Gore's chair, I would have unleashed a verbal dressing down that would have made a sailor blush, and I would have gotten up, tossed my mic at Brokaw, interview over.

But, like I said, Gore's a bigger man than me, and he's used to stupid questions, and blatant, partisan, leading questions at that. I really do take measure of Gore for sitting through it all calmly and coolly and answering like he'd expected the question all along.

Pretty funny that Brokaw said, "I don't do Rush Limbaugh," and then he launches into a Limbaugh-like, childish rant that in so many words called Gore a sore loser.

I would really have liked it if Gore had said to Brokaw, "Remember what you just asked me moments ago, something about 'Is that the right kind of signal to send to the young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in the political decisions that we're making this year?' and it all being about 'trivia and nonsense?' Thanks for making my point, Brokaw."

People who are getting heavily involved in politics need to hear just how trivial, moronic and dirty (mostly because of money) that our politics has become, and it's absurd that Brokaw takes umbrage with Gore over saying it, because Brokaw of all people should know just how true it is.

Oh, and if I were Gore, I would have definitely let Brokaw know that while the courts might have ruled he lost, the American people didn't see it that way, to the tune of about 500,000 votes. I know, Gore has undoubtedly let it go, and I should, too, but like I said, Gore's the bigger man.

In fairness, the interview wasn't a complete disaster, however. Of all people, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickins announced last week his plan for a major shift from oil to wind power in Texas. As much as I despise Pickins for what he did to John Kerry in 2004, he deserves credit for pouring $1 billion of his money into this venture and giving it the recognition it deserves. It really is an illustration, as Gore said, that global warming makes for strange political bedfellows.

One thing that was lacking from Gore's speech last Thursday was mass transit, and the important role it will play in helping move America into the 21st Century and away from fossil fuels. And I'm yet to hear Barack Obama mention mass transit as much as I would like, either. But, an effective, energy efficient and environmentally friendly rail system is a must as part of the solution to oil. More on mass transit in the coming days, including some letters I've been meaning to write to some prominent politicians urging them to adopt aggressive strategies and funding for mass transit.

Letter to use: alternative energy sources

After Al Gore's inspiring speech yesterday about alternative energy sources, I promised a form letter you all could use to write your legislators in your state and in Washington. Below is the letter I sent off to my U.S. Rep. a little while ago; I am also sending it to both of my U.S. Senators and also my state senator and representative as well. Again, feel free to copy/paste my text below to use as a starting point. (As I mentioned earlier today, I encourage you to alter your letter somewhat - legislators tend to ignore form/chain letters, so please add some of your own thoughts and concerns, too.) If you need to find out who your federal legislators are, click Here. On to my letter:

Dear Rep. Brady,
I'm writing to you regarding energy alternatives in America, or a lack of them. In short, we need more and more of them, yesterday. I vehemently oppose additional off-shore drilling on the outer continental shelf, or in ANWR. This will only serve to threaten the environment and prolong our addiction to oil.

I urge you to support an Apollo-like program to develop multiple ways for American to kick our oil addiction, including much, much more money for mass transit (which Congress has long neglected at best. or ignored at worst - I tend to believe the latter); solar, wind, and wave technologies; and yes, better batteries like John McCain has proposed, too.

This program should also include tax incentives for companies to develop these technologies and to build them in the United States, with no loopholes (and that includes cheap labor in the Mariana Islands - the Tom DeLay loophole). If any manufacturing or R&D jobs get off-shored by a company that's received tax breaks, they should be rescinded immediately.

I also would like to see Big Oil pay more for the oil that it is already getting, courtesy of contracts from the U.S. government; the 12.5% oil companies currently pay is PATHETIC. It is OUR oil, not theirs. It should be doubled, and the revenue raised could serve as tax relief, or better yet, to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and as tax incentives for development of new energy technologies.

I listened to Al Gore's speech yesterday in its entirety, and I found it inspiring. As a fellow Democrat, I hope and expect that you will be an active, forceful advocate for proposals like his.

I look forward to hearing from you and learning more about how you will support alternative energy sources. America needs to act boldly and quickly, NOW, and more drilling is not an option.

Thanks very much for your time.

Sincerely,

RJ

Again, please take just a few minutes to write your legislators. We have to demand action, and more importantly, we have to elect leaders to Congress who are going to be forceful advocates of alternative energy and change. I will share any responses I get from my legislators with you.

Photo: AP/LM Otero

Another response to the Gore speech

I also got this response yesterday from a guy named Sean about my post on Al Gore's speech, and it's at least a little more reasonable than the response than the one I posted below. It reads:

It seems that Mr. Gore has changed his marketing message. While he still makes multiple claims that are a little hard to substantiate, he doesn't seem to be making the wild claims he did in An Inconvenient Truth (see http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/10/26/35-inconvenient-truths-the-errors-in-al-gores-movie-part-1-of-5/)

Now, Mr. Gore is taking the energy independence tactic. This is much more realistic and more people are likely to make "sacrifices" for the sake of energy independence if we state that we have to break away from the Mideast and destroy their power over us. He seems to put a lot of his reliance on solar energy though and we should probably include nuclear and hydrogen in that discussion.

Sean makes a good point here about alternative energy sources, and I totally agree - perhaps Al Gore is tacking differently now and trying another strategy. If so, good on him. I don't buy into all of the anti-Inconvenient Truth stuff, but it's certainly possible that Gore didn't get everything right in the movie. However, I firmly believe (as do many scientists) that the basic premise of the movie is sound. Sure, you can find scientists who disagree with Gore, and some of them might not even be sponsored by or work for Big Oil. But, those scientists are few and far in between. And as the North Pole continues melting as we speak, time really is running out for us.

I think Gore is moving to the next stage now. His movie and many of his speeches have sufficiently raised the alarm about the problem (I certainly hope). Now he's moving on to the Solutions stage. I can only hope our politicians are listening to reason. But, it's our job to make sure that they are.

More to follow on this, including some e-mails I've written to my legislators.

Picture above by Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times 

Debunking the bunk on Al Gore's speech

Well, the reception from Al Gore's speech yesterday has been pretty predictable in many ways. (A short clip from the full version of his speech is above - and it's the best part, where he challenges America to have 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years.) Those who oppose him for political reasons are still whining about his electricity bill while ignoring the real problems facing our country. After I blogged about Gore's speech yesterday, I sent out an e-mail to a bunch of people, imploring them to at least listen to Gore's speech with an open mind. Here are two very different responses (my comments follow each one).

Here's the predictable, negative, right-wing ideological tripe in an e-mail from an unidentified conservative who I know through someone else:

If Clinton hadn't vetoed the bill to drill in ANWR back in 1994, we wouldn't have such dependency on foreign oil and we wouldn't have the high gas prices we have now. I've written to my congressmen to 'Drill here, drill now'. We need to keep gas prices down while exploring cost effective alternatives. Food prices are soaring due to the regulations "forcing" the use of ethanol (ever notice how much stuff uses corn syrup?).

How can you take Algore seriously when he's the biggest hypocrite out there? The money paid for "Carbon Credits" goes to a company he owns. And his own home uses 20 times the national average in energy consumption (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/Story?id=2906888&page=1)

(silly you...you know I have a soap box too....and I remember the Carter years and the misery index and I fear for our country (and my hard earned income) if a Socialist is elected president :-( )

Hmm - where to start...

First, I'm actually pretty amused that some conservatives can actually find a way to tie 2008 fuel prices to President Clinton. And just when I thought the Blame Clinton fad had faded. How silly of me. Conservatives have spent the last eight years blaming Bill Clinton for just about everything bad, all while George W. Bush has been driving America into the ground on many fronts. I'm happy and proud that Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling. The idea that ANWR can alleviate our energy problem is a farce and a sham, perpetuated by those on the right who think that a little more oil from our modest (at best) oil reserves will lower prices. WRONG. ANWR, even by generous estimates, would only provide a fraction of oil that American uses on a daily basis (approx. 21 million barrels per day, as of 2008). To wit, according to a statistical report from the U.S. Department of Energy:

The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day in 2030. In the low and high ANWR oil resource cases, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR peaks in 2028 at 510,000 and 1.45 million barrels per day, respectively. Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels, respectively.

What's all this mean? That we still need foreign oil, and lots of it, to function as we are right now with very little mass transit options, few explored alternative energy sources, and virtually no other automobile options, save a smattering of hybrids that are hitting the market, which still rely on oil to run.

There are a few more things that conservatives aren't considering, and that our corporate media (and Faux News) isn't telling us. One, has anyone considered that if we do start drilling on our outer continental shelf and in ANWR, OPEC could simply reduce production by the same amount, thereby keeping prices high? What or who is to stop them, other than begging by our politicians? The answer is, nothing, unless a Republican president wants to invade another country in the Middle East. (How much oil does Iran have again?)

Anyone who thinks that OPEC will sit on its collective hands and not lower production while we drill for more oil, thereby lowering the price of oil, raise your hand. Now go sit in the corner and put on a dunce cap.

Two, it amazes me that people think if we start drilling tomorrow that gas prices will magically come down. It ain't happenin', capt'n. These people (like the e-mailer above) who write their elected legislators demanding that we "drill here, drill now" don't realize that it's only going to line the pockets of Big Oil and the politicians they support (and we know who most of them are: G-O-P), and also destroy the environment in the process. It's just one more example on a tragically long list of ways that Republicans convince people to vote against their economic (and environmental) self interests.

Big Oil is NOT friendly to the environment, and there are many, many examples, most notably the Exxon Valdez. Sickeningly enough, ExxonMobile has fought in the courts tooth and nail the people whose livelihoods the company destroyed, refusing to make adequate restitution. So, should we open up a pristine refuge for Big Oil to come in and rape the land? How about, NO!?! No way. Big Oil has proven time and time again to be environmentally unfriendly (to be kind), yet now it claims it can extract oil from ANWR "in environmentally sensitive ways." (A line that President Bush happily pimps on TV, over and over and over.) That just sounds good for the political argument to turn our land over to Big Oil to be raped and pillaged.

Three, I seldom hear this argument voiced, but it's our oil, and by our I mean citizens of the United States - it's not Big Oil's. Currently, the oil companies pay the U.S. Government 12.5 percent of the oil's market value to get it out of the ground. If a law does get passed allowing Big Oil access to ANWR & the outer continental shelf, that rate should be doubled, and the money should go entirely toward development of alternative energy sources. What's more, a law should be passed imposing strict fines on the oil companies should they have an oil spill. What a novel concept - the polluter pays, not the taxpayer. In the last 30 years (since Reagan took office) - it's been the taxpayers who have largely been paying for corporate environmental disasters, not the polluter. That's an outrage of Biblical proportions.

As far as Al Gore and his electricity bill, I'm not going to waste a whole lot more time on it here, as I've blogged about this before, but I will repeat a few things (Note: it's "Al Gore," not "Algore," an elementary smear perpetuated by drug addict Rush Limbaugh, the uneducated Sean Hannity, and the asinine Newt Gingrich. It's sort of like saying the "Democrat Party" in lieu of the "Democratic Party," a McCarthy-era smear every bit as stupid and childish):

1. Gore has publicly stated that he purchases renewable energy and has taken many steps to reduce his carbon footprint, including putting up solar panels on his mansion in Tennessee, and I believe him. Hey, if the guy has one solar panel, it's one more than the White House has. But, the White House DID have solar panels when Jimmy Carter was president, but Reagan had them taken down. How stupid does that look, in hindsight?

2. The entire faux Gore Electricity Bill "story" has been endlessly flogged and pimped by a group called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a right-wing funded group that has been out to smear Gore for years now, specifically the day after his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won two Oscars. But, I'm sure the timing was entirely coincidental, right? Anyway, read more about the myths behind Gore's electricity bill Here and Here.

3. Quite frankly, I don't care if Gore criss-crosses the globe in a 747 by himself - he's done more to raise awareness about global warming in the last two years than George W. Bush (or his father) did in three presidential administrations.

4. It's tragically hilarious that President Bush went out of his way on television a few days ago to say that he would NOT encourage Americans to conserve energy, that it's "not his place to do that." Unreal. Like it would be a bad thing for the president to set an example for the American people. Then again, why start now?

5. One more thing about oil spills - the right has perpetuated the myth total lie that there were no oil spills during Hurricane Katrina. I will write more about this in a bit - it warrants a separate post, but it's absolutely, 100 percent FALSE. This is yet another blatant example of the right-wing media's strategy of repeating a lie over and over, hoping that people will believe it if they hear it often enough. Sell that crap to the tourists, because I ain't buyin' it.

To be fair, I will say this about the e-mail above - she brings up two points that I sort of agree with, so there is some common ground.

First, ethanol is NOT the answer - I totally agree. Burning food for fuel is a monumentally stupid idea. But, it's not Gore who has been pimping ethanol, it's been President Bush. Spend 15 minutes on YouTube and you can find plenty of Bush speeches where he's talking so favorably about ethanol, you'd think we have enough corn to power the entire planet.

Second, I've never been a big fan of carbon credits, but I don't yet know too much about it. However, I'm not keen on giving a corporation my money, with which it promises to "plant a tree" or something of the like. I'll make my own decisions about how I help the environment, thanks very much. Hey, I may be a big fan of Al Gore (notice the spelling), but I'm not slavishly devoted to every idea he has. Just most of them. And I'm hearing more ideas and bold goals come out of his mouth about the environment than I've heard from Bush in 7+ years, but I'm repeating myself. (But that point bears repeating, to be sure.)

However, if Gore chooses to invest in a carbon credit company, so what? I'm sure he's invested in a great deal of "green" companies. How is that a bad thing? People who accuse him of promoting green ideas because he owns stock in some innovative green companies are missing the point, and are stuck in a Rush Limbaugh-like drug-induced haze, where being critical of Al Gore is supposed to be the right's answer to his innovative ideas, as well as our energy problems.

Speaking of investments, I guess the conservative e-mailer above has never heard of Halliburton, a company headed by Dick Cheney until he became vice president, and also the same company that's received no-bid contract after no-bid contract in Iraq. (Also a company that recently moved its world headquarters to the Middle East, away from prying eyes in the U.S. Anyone care to bet how much cash Cheney is lavished with from the company once he leaves office?) Halliburton has made hundreds of millions during this administration, due in no small part to its connections at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

And finally, I got a kick out of this line from the e-mail above: I remember the Carter years and the misery index. ... (Read: Hey, you stupid kid, I know more than you because I've been around longer.) Please - get a grip. What's more, turn off Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Lielly and their ilk and get some real news. Here's a few recent news items that this person may have missed: Consumer prices jumped 1.2 percent in June, the biggest one-month jump since another Republican recession, circa 1982. And a recent Washington Post poll revealed that consumer confidence is at a 16-year low, the lowest since 1992, another year of a Republican recession. But hey, let's not facts get in the way.

I also laugh and laugh at Repubes bringing up Carter whenever they get the chance, including McCain, who impressed no one with the witless remark, "Obama keeps saying I'm running for a third Bush term, but it sounds like he's running for Jimmy Carter's second term." Funny how McCain never mentions the eight years of President Clinton, which were mostly a time of economic growth. If Jimmy Carter's all McCain's got, he's going to have the look of a candidate who's going to get his ass kicked this November.

I'll bring up the other e-mail shortly in a separate post.

Gore's speech on the env't a call to arms

Above is Al Gore's speech on the environment that he delivered earlier today at the Daughters of the American Revolution Hall in Washington, D.C. (It's a little over 27:00 long, but it's well worth a close listen.)

Gore was no bore - he cut right to the chase not long after taking the stage: "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."

Then Gore dropped a whopper: "Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." Woot! It's about time someone said it.

Now that is called political courage. Too bad it's coming from a former politician, but I'll take whatever I can get. (How long do you think it will take before the next, trite Al Gore Electricity Bill story will make headlines? Drudge is probably lubing himself up right now.)

Many, many people have expressed to me the opinion that Gore can make a much bigger difference outside of our government than in it, and up until now, I've disagreed, sometimes vehemently. But, those people were right - Gore is no longer constrained by the endless, incessant deal making and bargaining that hamstrings our political leaders in Washington.

The minute I heard his proposal that we should be using "carbon-free sources within 10 years," I yelled... well, I won't tell you what I yelled, but it's about time someone take an aggressive stance toward cutting fossil fuels instead of doing a political dance and just enough to get a few more votes.

Color me underfreakingwhelmed when I hear our politicians in Washington patting themselves on the back (and more recently, the G8 leaders) by pledging to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2050. BFD. We need a much more aggressive approach to a problem that threatens every living thing on this planet.

I've said it many times, and it bears repeating here - I'm sick and tired of hearing global warming deniers (or selfish people who flat-out don't care) bring up India and China whenever the topic of global warming comes up. I guess American Leadership is a concept that's completely foreign to them. Maybe, just maybe, if China and India see us taking an aggressive approach to this problem, we will kick the last leg out from under their platforms of resistance, and more pressure can be brought to bear on them to curb their fossil fuel consumption.

Gore echoed this sentiment during his speech, and I had a big smile on my face when I heard him say it (At around the 24:20 mark of the speech):

...in fact, we must move first, [Emphasis his] because that's the key for getting other to follow, and moving first is in our own national interest.

And it's people like Gore who are going to help get it done. Part of me hopes that Gore is a part of a would-be Obama administration, & part of me hopes not, because that just gives the Grand Old Polluters ammunition; as Bill Maher said during his Decider show last year, when the GOP attacks Gore, they unfortunately sometimes succeed in poisoning the debate on global warming.

In a show of bipartisanship, I was happy to hear Gore mention Rep. Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate. It's worth noting that Barr historically was no friend of the Clinton administration, to put it mildly. But, Gore seems to be moving above politics now, at least to a point. He's not completely bipartisan right now, nor can he be, especially when the lion's share of green legislators in Congress have a "D" after their names.

I'm very proud to have cast my vote for Gore in 2000, and I hope and pray that he does some day decide to take the plunge and run for president again. He's certainly young enough to do it, but for now, I hope he continues to give speeches like the one above while continuing to make a difference outside of government. I also can't help but wonder what sort of country we'd be living in had the Supreme Court not put a stop to the Florida recounts in the fall of 2000.

I urge all of you to do three things after watching this video:

1. Write your elected leaders and implore them to back the Gore plan to aggressively develop alternative energy sources. Pledging to halve our emissions by 2050 is no plan at all. (I'll be sharing my letters to my elected legislators shortly.)

2. Look at what you consume, use and throw away, and make the move to greener products where you can, and recycle anything that can be recycled. Don't buy into the bunk that "one person can't make a difference." Imagine if everyone in China had that attitude? That would amount to 1.5 billion bad attitudes.

3. Visit the We Can Solve It homepage for more ideas on what you can do, including this page to receive e-mail updates from the site.

Matt Drudge: still a GOP stooge

[Click for a larger view]

Every once in a while, I enjoy pointing out just how absurdly moronic Matt Drudge is. I know, it's not particularly newsworthy, and really, it's a demonstration that I have a firm grasp of the obvious. But, every once in a while it bears repeating. Why? Because his Website is one of the most visited on the Web.

For some reason, the GOP and its shills like Drudge still seem to have a fetish for Al Gore. Perhaps its because of Gore's success and the inroads he's making in raising the warning flag about global warming. Who knows? But, the misinformation and attacks are like the Energizer bunny - They keep coming... well, you know the rest.

The above image is a screen capture from the Drudge Report a few days ago, featuring a prominent story about Gore's energy consumption. What a joke. The link goes to a story Here, by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a blatantly right-wing funded organization. (I wrote about it Here when these morons tried to embarrass Gore just hours after his ground-breaking movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won several Oscars.)

Gore's energy consumption habits aren't really of interest to me or anyone else other than the most rabid GOPers. And, of course, his energy consumption only tells part of the story. Here's a guy criss-crossing the globe trying to make a difference with global warming, in addition to the fact that he buys green energy, and he has solar panels installed on his very large home, yet he's getting his balls busted by partisan hacks who don't have anything better to do.

Meh - enough of it - I guess I'm no better than they are, but it's worth pointing out that Drudge will do whatever he can to smear prominent Democrats, and this is just another example.

I'll never tire of pointing out that the idea of a "librul media" is unadulterated bullshit. Drudge is one of the most visited sites on the Web (and many news networks report what his Website says, like it's news! And not just Fox News, either), Fox News is the most watched cable news channel during most time slots, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is the largest media conglomerate in the U.S., and the top three radio personalities are all GOP shills. Oh yea, we have a "librul media" alright.

No wonder the right is panicked about the possibility of a Democratic Congress re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine.

I'm pleased that Obama has talked publicly about enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act if he becomes president. It's about time - no president has enforced it since Reagan effectively gutted it when he became president. It's still a law that's on the books, it's in the public interest, and it's about time that some of these huge corporations be broken up, specifically our mass media conglomerates.

Scalia: "Get over" 2000 election decision

The insipid Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appears Sunday night on 60 Minutes, and Leslie Stahl asks him about Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court decision that effectively stopped the Florida recount in 2000. His response: "Get over it," and he also gives a similar answer to a small group, and afterward, says, "So there."

What a clown. Scalia represents another of the disastrous legacies of President Reagan that we all should be so grateful for. It's too bad that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, because if they weren't, he probably would've been bounced from the bench a long time ago.

I'm amused by Scalia's disingenuous retort that "Gore brought it [the 2000 election] into the courts. What were we supposed to do?" I obviously haven't seen the whole interview yet, but I hope that Stahl pressed him on this point - the reason that Al Gore did just that is because he was getting royally screwed in Florida by faulty voting machines, and many, many voting irregularities.

It almost is too obvious to mention that if the Supreme Court case in 2000 involved Bush's supporters being disenfranchised, as Gore's supporters actually were, you can bet that recount would have happened.

Another side note about judges - it will never cease to amaze me how Dubya puts down lawyers and judges - especially judges. Any judge who renders a decision he doesn't like is an "activist judge," but when a judge rules in a way Bush approves of, his mouth is taped shut. I wish someone would have pointed out to Our National Embarrassment a long time ago that it was judges and lawyers who put him into office in the first place, so before he goes putting them down, he should consider that. (A great time to do this would have been in '04, when Bush mocked John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, as a "trial lawyer" in just about every debate, especially during questions about tort and medical malpractice reform. Another missed opportunity by Kerry. Sadly, there were more than a few of those.)

Despite the smug Scalia's dismissive comments, we aren't getting over it, and the biggest reason, at least for me, is because I can't help but wonder what kind of a country we would be living in had Gore become president in 2000. Some things very well may have happened, including 9/11, but the War in Iraq almost certainly would not have, along with a laundry list of other unfortunate events these last 7+ years.

Anyway, I bring up issues like this, because if McSame is elected, we are going to have a Supreme Court with plenty of more judges like Scalia.

And that's one scary thought.

New anti-McCain ad hitting airwaves

Greg Sargent over at TPM has the latest on the new anti-McCain video above, which began airing today:

Here's a first look at the first ad being run against John McCain by Progressive Media U.S.A., the new pro-Dem third-party group headed by David Brock that's planning to raise $40 million to bloody up the GOP nominee in advance of this fall's election. The ad, called "Out of Touch," will be running on cable beginning tomorrow and can be seen in D.C. on CNN and MSNBC — which is to say, it's a small buy aimed at an insider audience of potential future donors, political operatives, and the like.

My first thought when I saw this - "Excellent." In years and elections past, I might have thought to myself, "that's playing dirty." But, after seeing what the GOP shamelessly did to Al Gore in 2000 and most notably the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004, I hope there are many more efforts just like this one. When Democrats try to take the high road by being the "better party," they become the better, MINORITY party. Democrats won't retake the White House until they learn to fight Republicans on their turf. Is it dirty and nasty? Sure, but there's too much at stake right now to be worried about being portrayed by some as being just that - Republicans have been doing it for years, most notably since the early 1990s when an Arkansas governor decided he'd like to run for president.

It's also good to see that David Brock isn't resting on his laurels with all of his Media Matters success, although no one could blame him if he did. The more people like Bill O'Reilly hate people like Brock for what he is doing - exposing the lies and distortions of the right-wing media - the more I love and am thankful for guys like Brock.

h/t Crooks & Liars

Gore's new presentation on global warming

This is a half-hour presentation given by Al Gore in February about global warming, and I found it very informative.

You really have to tip your hat to Gore - he doesn't appear to be resting on his laurels or accomplishments - not by a long shot. He's taken the smears and the attacks by the political right and global warming deniers, and he remains determined to do something about what he calls "the global climate crisis." I firmly believe he's right, too; it is a climate crisis, but the problem is getting greedy, selfish people who only care about their generation and their way of life to take steps to insure a better future for successive generations.

Gore has it right, too - as Ghandi so famously said, we must "be the change we wish to see in the world," and a big part of that is changing the laws in America. There is almost a disincentive for people to invest in alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and plug-in hybrids, and the next president must change that. It should be noted that McCain is opposed to subsidies for these very types of energy sources, according to the latest issue of Newsweek. Outrageous. We can, we must and we will end subsidies to Big Oil and turn over those subsidies and incentives to solar power and other clean, zero-emission technologies.

I also took note of Gore's mention of what he has done in and around his home to reduce his carbon footprint. I still seethe at the media coverage he received over his electric bill, less than 24 hours after his movie, An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars. A right-wing smear campaign, financed by the Republican Party, did all it could to make Gore's electricity bill public in an asinine, transparent attempt to embarrass him. My favorite line was the one echoed over and over and over again by the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh and Coultergeist - that he flew around in private jets, contributing to global warming.

An inconsequential point, as far as I'm concerned. I'll tolerate Gore flying around the world 50 times on a private jet, compared to what the bloated Limbaugh and his ilk do to help stem the climate crisis, which is nothing. In fact, all the hot air they spew into the air no doubt worsens the climate crisis.

The evidence is pretty stark that we altering the Earth's climate, but Big Oil has hundreds of millions billions to spend on putting plenty of doubt into the minds of some dim-witted politicians, and tragically far too many citizens the world over.

My point of view is this - evidence be damned. What's so bad about cleaning up our environment and decreasing air pollution, which kills hundreds of thousands of people every year? The answer is so simple it defies explanation why some people embrace pollution as if it's a virtue.

People like Gore make me proud to be an American, and damn proud that I voted for him in 2000. I wonder what sort of world we would be living in today if the Supreme Court would not have chosen our president in 2000.

Donaldson & Will spar on global warming

This one is from last weekend, but still worth a look - it's conservative columnist George F. Will, a noted Al Gore basher and global warming denier, taking the opportunity to highlight both, ahem, attributes during an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos last weekend.

Kudos to Sam Donaldson for taking Will to task for his head-in-the-sand attitude about global warming. As Donaldson sagely grouses to Will, "If you and Senator Inhofe want to continue to have your heads in the sand, I'm going to continue to call you out on it. But, I have grandchildren. ..."

Good for you, Sam. Just because there are people who believe that global warming is a myth/hoax doesn't make it no so. And the deniers who part company with the bountiful scientific evidence that humans are making the Earth warmer deserve our scorn, and diminished credibility.

What really irks me about selfish people who can only look 20 years into the future with the attitude of, "It won't affect me, so who cares?" is that there are so many other benefits of reducing the burning of fossil fuels, even in the minute chance that global warming turns out not to be true. Increased pollution has many other adverse effects - poor air quality kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each and every year.

Another thing that really gets on my nerves - the idea that drastically cutting our carbon emissions will harm our economy. When I hear people say this, I ask myself if we should hold a funeral for American ingenuity. Can you possibly imagine the global dominance America could enjoy if we took the lead in hydrogen, electric and hydrogen cars; solar, wind and wave power; and alternative fuels. What we really need is leadership in these areas, but if it doesn't come from a fossil, the Bush administration has shown scant interest.

Whether you like Gore or you hate him, the man is right - we really do need an "Apollo-type program to combat this problem." Gore has also often said that global warming "is not a political issue, it's a moral issue." That's right, it should be. But, unfortunately, some people will never be able to get past the fact that he's a Democrat who ran for (and won) the presidency.

Thoughts on Gore's Nobel Prize

One of the saddest things about the political discourse in this country, specifically from the right, is its inability to even acknowledge the accomplishments of its opponents in any meaningful, respectful way.

For instance, my first thought when I heard that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize was, "I wonder what the scum on the right will do to try and smear Gore with this time." You may recall that after Gore's movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, won Oscars and received international accolades, the radical right, the very next day, came after Gore for his electric bill. (And I'm sure it was a total coincidence that the attacks occurred less than 24 hours after the Academy Awards, right?) Also, never mind the fact that the organization that went after Gore is completely funded by right-wing blowhards. (Amazing how little press that received.) Anyway, more on Gore's electric bill Here.

Anyway, it didn't take me long to find out if the right would come after Gore once more following his Peace Prize win.

The most notable feckless rhetoric came from OxyContin spokesman Rush Limbaugh, who whined on his radio show Friday after Gore won it (from The Politico:

"So now 'Algore' will join Yasir Arafat among the list of noble Nobel peace laureates," Rush Limbaugh said with much sarcasm at the top of his broadcast today. The Norwegian committee, Limbaugh said, has "rendered themselves a pure, 100 percent joke."

Citing Arafat, the former Palestinian leader, and former President Jimmy Carter's award in 2002, Limbaugh added that "The Nobel committee has lost all credibility since long before they awarded this award to 'Algore.'"

I love it - yet another institution responsible for recognizing a prominent Democrat who really wants to drive positive change in the world that gets vilified by right-wing blowhards. People like Limbaugh can't handle the truth - that Gore has done more to promote goodwill and positive change around the world in the past year than Bush has done since he was appointed president.

However, Limbaugh isn't the only one who can't handle success and recognition of a liberal. Laura Ingraham had this to say about Gore's win (again, from the Politico):

"I confess, I have been in a bit of a funk after learning of the Gore/Nobel news," conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham said in an e-mail. "I really thought Cindy Sheehan should have been recognized."

Yea, considering Sheehan might not have been a bad idea. I know this - Gore and Sheehan both deserve a great deal more recognition for promoting peace and progress in humanity than anyone, anyone, in the Bush administration.

Of course, Limbaugh had a few suggestions of people who should be considered for the award. His suggestion? "I call on Albert Arnold 'Algore' to redirect his Nobel Peace Prize to genuine agents of peace."

Rush had an idea of who that could be - Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. troops in Iraq. "If there has ever been an engine of peace, it’s the United States military," Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh must be bucking for a comedy act with that comment. Surely a career in comedy would last longer than his career at ESPN, which lasted about as long as a Twinkie on his breakfast table. Our military during the Bush presidency has wrought more death and destruction than arguably any other military on Earth. I don't fault the military specifically, because they are doing what they are told, but to even suggest that our military and its leaders should be awarded the Peace Prize makes Limbaugh fit for a straight jacket. Limbaugh may have been saying that quote tongue in cheek, but with him, is it out of the question that he wasn't?

And by the way - that Nobel Peace Prize? If war criminal Dr. Henry Kissinger could win it, just about anyone is fair game. I'd rate his winning it a few levels above Gore winning it on the outrage scale.

Stupidity not limited to Earthlings

The Weekly World News has silenced its presses. The fantasy paper has announced that it will no longer publish a physical issue; it will just maintain a Website, and that's it.

Above, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush holds up an issue of the WWN in this May 3, 2000 AP file photo. Apparently, aliens in outer space have only managed to tap into Fox News satellites. However, this could be a positive - maybe they'll think that Earth isn't even worth invading if that's all they've looked at.

On a much brighter note, I can never look at pictures from the 2000 campaign without pondering what America would be like today had the Supreme Court not crowned King George president in the fall of 2000. It's likely 9-11 would have still happened; the planning was too far along at that point, and our intelligence agencies too hamstrung, but the War in Iraq? It almost certainly never would have happened.

But, there's no use pining about what might have been, because it doesn't change a thing, because when the fantasizing is over, I still find myself living in a country being "led" by George W. Bush. Less than 545 days to go.

AP Photo/Eric Draper, file

Fox Attacks: Global Warming

I don't remember if I've posted this in the past, but even if I did, it's worth a repost. This is a pretty good montage of what Fox does to pollute the global warming debate.

As Al Gore states in An Inconvenient Truth, the Right merely tries to create a reasonable doubt in the debate, and Fox merely serves as the cudgel for anti-global warming crowd to bludgeon voters with. In our government, this crowd is headed by Senator James Inhofe.

It's proof positive why I despise anti-environmental, big-business conservatives. The polluter stopped paying a long time ago in this country.

Poll: Gore leading in New Hampshire

On Wednesday, The Politico reported that a recent poll has Al Gore in the lead among all Democratic candidates for president. I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or discouraged by that.

Regardless of how he's faring in the polls right now (and he's looking quite strong), I really hope Gore jumps into the race. There's no doubt that he has to look at such poll results and really ponder a run, regardless of whether he says so publicly or not. It's not hard to imagine why - this is a man who came within one vote of the Supreme Court of winning the presidency, and the American people elected him in 2000, by about 550,000 votes.

Run Al, run. You can urge Gore to run by signing this petition.

Does Al's interview suggest he'll run?

Al Gore appeared on Countdown a few nights ago to promote his new book, The Assault on Reason, in an uncharacteristically long interview by Keith Olbermann. He makes a number of good points, but notice his careful comments about Cindy Sheehan - the nature of his remarks about the polarizing anti-war figure have the fingerprints of a presidential candidate all over them. Perhaps I'm over analyzing, but his comments on Sheehan, especially when considering his historically vehement opposition to the War in Iraq, are evidence that he's being pretty careful. Gore's been through the presidential ringer before, and he knows full well that anything he says now can and will be held against him as a candidate.

Gore's non-denial denials about his presidential candidacy are becoming more and more comical. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, but the fact that he won't say, unequivocally, that he's not running is very telling. In the current edition of Newsweek, Howard Fineman reveals that Gore is 50/50 on running for president:

He is "50-50," according to one of his closest friends and financial backers. On the one hand, Gore inquires about Manhattan office space for his business and charity ("It has to be a 'green' building," said this source, who didn't want to be named discussing Gore's affairs). On the other hand, he keeps his face in front of big donors, as he did at a recent dinner in Miami. Gore is all the rage among corporate executives, who see wisdom—and profits—in going green, and who appreciate Gore's prescience. "Al has set this up so he can jump either way in the fall," said the close friend. "If there is an opening, I say he goes."

In a way, if he has every intention of running, he's being smart by staying out for now. While staying on the sidelines legally bars him from fund raising, it also gives him a distinct advantage - he's sort of exempt from press scrutiny and attacks from both the left and the right if he's not yet a candidate. If he were to enter the race in September, he would still have plenty of time to raise money; he still has a vast fund raising network in place from his 2000 campaign and a large cadre of Hollywood friends.

I've written it before and I'll write it again many, many times - run Al, run. My absolute dream ticket for 2008 would be Gore/Obama. I think the ticket would be unbeatable, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney be damned.

Urge Gore to run by e-mailing him at: AlGore@algore.com.

PA prez poll has Rudy holding edge

What's wrong with Pennsylvania? A recent poll pitting presidential front runners Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani has Rudy enjoying a four percentage-point lead of Hillary.

I'm anything but frightened by this, for a number of reasons:

1. It's much too early to be panicking about polls. The only real function polls serve right now is fund raising.

2. Pennsylvania has not gone to the GOP presidential candidate in the general election since 1988.

3. There are plenty of x-factors who may yet enter the race - Newt Gingrich, Fred Thompson, Al Gore and Michael Bloomberg.

Pennsylvanians have plenty of time to wake up. I'm betting they will.

Poll details: Conducted May 22-28. 1,318 Pennsylvania voters surveyed. Plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. Leaders for respective parties shown. Graphic via Keystone Politics.

Random pix

I thought two things when I saw this picture in Time of Al Gore in his office: 1. Is this how neat he would keep the Oval Office? :-) and 2. That's a pretty sweet screen set-up. I was thrilled to get one 24" screen late last year, and he has what looks to be three screens that are at least 20" each. Now bad, Al. Now, use those three screens to judge your popularity in the opinion polls, and jump into the presidential race, will you?

Via

I always knew that Welsh Corgis (my favorite dog) were smart, but this smart? Just another reason that I can't wait to have one some day.

Via

Are there four more seats at this table?

There are rumors to varying degrees that the 2008 presidential candidate pool may swell by as much as four in the coming weeks and months: Newt Gingrich, Fred Thompson, Al Gore and Michael Bloomberg. One Democrat, two moderate Republicans and Gingrich, a has-been who I like to think of as a "never will be."

My first thought about more candidates is that this isn't a bad thing. There is so much at stake in the 2008 election, the more candidates we have to choose from, the better.

I don't know all that much about Thompson, other than his infamous red truck that he used during his campaigns for the Senate. (It was later revealed that he would drive his red truck from campaign stop to campaign stop, but after each stop, he would drive his truck just outside of town, and get into a much nicer vehicle. An aide would drive the red truck almost the entire way to the next campaign appearance. Thompson would then switch back into the red truck and drive into the next town. Real genuine guy, that Thompson. I guess that's why he fit right in as a U.S. Senator.)

I honestly hope that Gingrich gets into the race. After the damage he did to our political system in the 1990s, I'd love to see him get his tail end kicked in the primaries, or heaven forbid, if he received the nomination.

It's no secret I hope Gore gets into the race, but the longer time goes on, the longer the odds are that he gets into the race. I hate it that this is a reason, but money and fundraising has got to be a consideration (and an impediment to his getting into the race later on) for a Gore candidacy.

Quite frankly, I really hope that Bloomberg enters the race. I'm of two schools of thought on Bloomberg. I like it that he would be beholden to no one, because he would not have to worry about fundraising. He has more money than he knows what to do with, so he could just deposit a check for $500 million in a campaign account, and away he goes.

But, there could also be a perception, which would have some merit, that Bloomberg would be "buying" the presidency.

Bloomberg seems to be seriously flirting with the idea of running, but he's tough to read. He recently even complimented Gore and the idea of a Gore candidacy (above).

From a recent New York Times article:

"I hope Al Gore enters the race; I think it would be good for the country," the mayor said.

Mr. Bloomberg this week moved to establish his chops as an environmental mayor by proposing congestion pricing for those who drive into Manhattan. While many have speculated about the Mayor himself running for president, could he be open to directing some of his fortune, and political clout, to Al Gore?

Bloomberg has better environmental credentials than any Republican candidate, and maybe even some of the Democrats.

However, I want Bloomberg to run for two principle reasons: 1. I want a credible threat to the two main political parties, and 2. Bloomberg is a moderate - he's not afraid to make tough choices. Although he's a Republican, he's a moderate who doesn't subscribe to Republican dogma on many issues, including taxes and the environment.

I wouldn't mind seeing all four of these guys enter the race - the more the merrier.

Photo by Chip East/Reuters

O'Reilly & Novak - racing toward the bottom

Two quotes caught my eye yesterday as I was scanning my usual Websites. I've already posted a Quote of the Week, but these two whoppers are worth noting.

Bill O'Reilly and Robert Novak are soulless on a good day, but I always get a special sort of joy when they show their true colors.

Bill O'Reilly, when discussing his latest fetish, Rosie O'Donnell, had this to say:

Never in the history of American television has one performer alienated so many people.

I couldn't stop laughing when I read he said that. Bill O'Reilly said that. I feel very sad for him.

Robert Novak, of Valerie Plame-fame, classlessly had this to say about Al Gore:

He enjoys being rich... he enjoys being an Oscar-winner... and I think he enjoys being fat, too.

I'm encouraged that Novak isn't waiting until Gore announces his candidacy for president (if he does) before attacking him, year 2000 style. Rather impressive, actually.

If I can psychoanalyze for a nanosecond, I'd say the early Gore attacks are a pretty good indication of how desperate the Right is about the GOP's chances to retain the White House in 2008. Maybe Karl Rove can feed Novak more people whose careers need ruining. So far, no luck, but there's still plenty of time before the '08 election.

And since Novak chooses to go into the gutter, I will for a second as well. Since he likes poking fun at Gore's midsection, he may want to put down the Twinkies himself.

Choosing who's the worst between these two is like choosing between food poisoning and a flaming case of hemorrhoids.

As predicted: anti-Gore coalition gears up

Well, it didn't take long. I despise Matt Drudge, but I drop by his Website daily to see how the right-wing shill is spinning the news according to RNC standards. This morning, as I was making my morning rounds on the Internet, this was the headline on Drudge's site. Of course, it's an oversimplification of what Gore really means. The headline on Drudge linked to a Time excerpt of Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, which comes out next Tuesday.

Here's a portion of the excerpt:

Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: "This chamber is, for the most part, silent—ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate."

Why was the Senate silent?

In describing the empty chamber the way he did, Byrd invited a specific version of the same general question millions of us have been asking: "Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.

A large and growing number of Americans are asking out loud: "What has happened to our country?" People are trying to figure out what has gone wrong in our democracy, and how we can fix it.

To take another example, for the first time in American history, the Executive Branch of our government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a prohibition established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

It is too easy—and too partisan—to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.

American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I am not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong. In 2001, I had hoped it was an aberration when polls showed that three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on Sept. 11. More than five years later, however, nearly half of the American public still believes Saddam was connected to the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess—an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.

While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.

[Snip]

The potential for manipulating mass opinions and feelings initially discovered by commercial advertisers is now being even more aggressively exploited by a new generation of media Machiavellis. The combination of ever more sophisticated public opinion sampling techniques and the increasing use of powerful computers to parse and subdivide the American people according to "psychographic" categories that identify their susceptibility to individually tailored appeals has further magnified the power of propagandistic electronic messaging that has created a harsh new reality for the functioning of our democracy.

As a result, our democracy is in danger of being hollowed out. In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason.

And what if an individual citizen or group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But too often they are not allowed to do even that. MoveOn.org tried to buy an ad for the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast to express opposition to Bush's economic policy, which was then being debated by Congress. CBS told MoveOn that "issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, CBS, having refused the MoveOn ad, began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the president's controversial proposal. So MoveOn complained, and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporarily, I mean it was removed until the White House complained, and CBS immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the MoveOn ad.

(Note that the highlighted, bold entries in the above passages are mine, and not in the original.) The rest of the Time excerpt is Here.

Now, you be the judge - is Al Gore really saying, as Drudge implies with his headline on his Website, that "American Democracy is now in danger"? What he is saying, as explained in the excerpt above, is that our idea or brand of democracy is in danger. AND IT IS.

The MoveOn example above I find particularly disturbing and outrageous. It's one of an infinite number of examples that one can find where the White House manipulates the mass media in this country. In part, we have Ronald Reagan to thank for that. His suspension of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 has allowed corporate-owned networks to air their political views, to the detriment of the marketplace of ideas, which traditionally allowed people to hear opposing views and weigh political decisions.

Now, media conglomerates are free to express political views (and advertisements) that align with their corporate interests. I'm going to be blogging much more about the Fairness Doctrine in the near future - I don't have enough time to adequately cover it now.

Gore's example of how a significant portion of the population still believes that Iraq is connected to 9-11 is pretty telling as well. (Somewhere, Karl Rove is clapping his hands with glee.) This administration willfully lies, then denies that it's done so. Iraq is the best example of it. Lie, lie, lie, until you start to believe it is the mantra of Bush's cabal. They'll even answer the question about Iraq having anything to with 9-11 with a "no," but in the same sentence they'll bring up 9-11 anyway. And many people are falling for it.

The War in Iraq is in many ways a PR and marketing effort. It's about manipulating public opinion to maintain support of the war. Since that support is evaporating, Bush is merely turning the war into a Democrat vs. Republican ideological war. Republicans are treating withdraw from Iraq as a defeat for the party. Maybe it would be, and maybe it wouldn't, but the overwhelming concern should be the lives of American troops and American interests. But those things don't matter to this administration.

I think that's part of what Al Gore means. I'm really looking forward to his book, but I'm anticipating the right's reaction to his book even more. I'm sure Sean Hannity already has a special planned. I sure hope so.

There's lots of Gore on Time's Website. Another piece, The Last Temptation of Al Gore, talks about Gore's potential presidential candidacy next year, which unfortunately is looking less and less likely. A brief excerpt of the excerpt:

"It happens all the time," says Tipper Gore. "Everybody wants to take him for a walk in the woods. He won't go. He's not doing it!" But even Tipper—so happy and relieved to see her husband freed up after 30 years in politics—knows better than to say never: "If the feeling came over him and he had to do it, of course I'd be with him." Perhaps that feeling never comes over him. Maybe Obama or Clinton or John Edwards achieves bulletproof inevitability and Gore never sees his opening. But if it does come, if at some point in the next five months or so the leader stumbles and the party has one of its periodic crises of faith, then he will have to decide once and for all whether to take a final shot at reaching his life's dream. It's the Last Temptation of Gore, and it's one reason he has been so careful not to rule out a presidential bid. Is it far-fetched to think that his grass-roots climate campaign could yet turn into a presidential one? As the recovering politician himself says, "You always have to worry about a relapse."

I have a great amount of respect and admiration for Gore's work and activism, but I still say that he could make the greatest amount of difference by running for president (and winning). Polls still show him with significant public support, as an undeclared candidate.

Run, Al. Please.