Everything Old is New Again

Al Gore's call today for an immediate and massive program to replace all U.S. fossil fuel electricity production with renewables is brilliant, courageous, and the absolute minimum required to save - not the planet, but the economy.

It's also a deeply painful reminder to those of us of a certain age who remember a president who recommended essentially the same program. Recommended it at a time when our dependence on foreign oil was half what it is today. At time when such an emergency program to switch to renewables would have cost a far smaller percentage of GDP than Gore's plan will.

In a speech that is remembered today not for its far-sightedness, not for its vision, not for its wisdom, but for the wimpyness of a phrase he never uttered - "national malaise."

As Joseph Wheelan writes, Carter was right.

(More after the jump.)


He was right in seeking to raise the fleet auto mileage standard to 48 miles per gallon by 1995. (Even U.S. automakers admitted at the time that they could easily achieve 30 mpg by 1985.)

Carter was right in exhorting Americans to turn down their thermostats, even if he did look nerdy in a cardigan while urging us to do so.

In his July 1979 speech, he was right when he said, "I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 —- never." That worthy goal quickly went by the board.

He was right to encourage fuel conservation by proposing a 50-cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline and a fee on imported oil —- in effect, a floor for fuel prices.

Invoking the pioneering spirit of the 1960s moon mission, he was right to recommend a tax on windfall oil profits to finance a crash program to develop affordable synthetic fuels.

Carter was correct, too, in setting a goal of obtaining 20 percent of our energy from solar power by the year 2000.

We balked, and his energy program, which was new and demanding, shriveled up and died. When oil prices began declining in the 1980s, the justification for change vanished altogether. The Reagan administration junked the proposed 1995 mileage standard and the rest of the Carter agenda.

SNIP

And now we are in the exact bind that Carter tried to prevent three decades ago.

An energy crisis is again upon us. Soaring gasoline prices and oil imports are daggers aimed at the heart of our stumbling economy.

SNIP

It is time to give Carter's proposals a second hearing.

This is what he said in July 1979: "You know we can do it. We have the natural resources. We have more oil in our shale alone than several Saudi Arabias. We have more coal than any nation on Earth. We have the world's highest level of technology. We have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly believe that we have the national will to win this war."

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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Eleanor gee I’m Swellanor about Gore

Eleanor Clift earns her McLaughlin Group moniker with her hankering for Al Gore to get the nod of a knotted-up, brokered Democratic presidential convention.

Is it possible? Well, Clift notes the party’s “good conscience” rule for delegates could supply the necessary latitude:

We have the Ted Kennedy forces to thank for the freedom of choice that all delegates enjoy, not just the supers. In 1980, Kennedy argued for an open convention, while President Carter was determined to keep convention delegates bound. With a 600-delegate margin over Kennedy, Carter prevailed. As a result, any delegate voting against the candidate he or she was elected to represent could be replaced by an alternate and thrown off the convention floor. The rule was strict and enforceable. Kennedy couldn't dislodge any of the Carter delegates. Two years later, after Carter lost the election, the phrase “in all good conscience” was inserted into the rule, belatedly giving delegates the latitude Kennedy had sought.

Clift advises the Clinton campaign has already been eyeballing the rule, but doubts she’ll get traction with it, in what must qualify as the punditry understatement of the week if not the month.

My take? The only real possibility for this is if Obama doesn’t have the nomination bagged on elected delegates alone, especially if he winds up needing half or more of the superdelegates to get the nomination.

If we get to that point, by the time we get there, supers will probably have a long-lasting distaste for Clinton in their mouths. But, they will know we have gotten to that point because Obama has feet of clay or a glass jaw, choose your metaphor.

Now, if that happens, does Gore want it? He will get targeted not only for the stuff that came up in 2000, but comments about his McMansion making him a hypocrite on global warming, and a challenge to say just what he will do about global warming if he thinks it’s so serious.

The flip side is, he’s been bloodied, he is “looser” now, and he could flip the hypocrisy by demonstrating that he could run a “green” day-to-day campaign, relatively speaking. And, he’s even more free of Slick Willie entanglement than eight years ago.

The flip side to that is, he’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does he want to come down off the mountain?

Right now, if the Clift scenario threatened to play out the way it would have to, I would rate the chance of Gore accepting a draft as 20-80 percent against.

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Global warming skeptics live among us

[x-posted on The 2 Dollar Bill]

I was invited to talk at a group lunch in a small town between here and there today. We'll call it Anytown, Any State. The food was fried. Haven't had a better pork tenderloin sandwich ever. Ever.

At the crossroads of two major Any State US Highways... people gather once a month to protect their rights as former employees of a large corporation. And they meet for fellowship. Did I mention the fried food?

As the invited speaker, I did my somewhat normal 'It's Spring! Here's what you should know about the twisting funnels of death in Any State"... adapted for the region which I was visiting.

Toward the end of my time, I open the floor to questions. Inevitably, the older crowds want to discuss global warming or climate change. And they have one informational source to cite. Only one. And they wish to smear only one former Veep. Only one.

Care to guess?

As they ask their questions... I pass on what I feel is credible science. When I don't know, I say "I don't know, but I can point you in the right direction or find out". When my answers conflict with what they've heard on the radio, though... trouble is afoot. Brows furrow. Stares harden.

So today, I went out on a limb a bit more than normal. Without asking where they got their "information"... I said in closing, it's very important to me that I understand where I get my science information. You have to consider the source.



Nature magazine. National Geographic. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

I asked if these were organizations or publications we could all trust? The group seemed to agree.

So I stepped out from the safety of the trunk....

But AM radio with Rush Limbaugh is not science. His message is laced with agenda and misinformation that is easily contradicted with science journals. And if you hear that scientists are divided on whether or not the globe is warming... you should find another source of information. The globe is warming. Now the questions are: "Why, exactly, is that happening... and what can be done to reduce the effects of climate change so that we may continue our way of life as we prefer it"?

As expected, the main interrogator, the Limbaugh-font-of-knowledge publicly pish-poshed me... yet, an entire side of the room lit up with applause.

To say I was shocked wouldn't cut it.


The experience reminded me that it's time again to brush up on my global warming apologetics.

I wasn't on my game today... certainly unprepared for a full-on Dr. Limbaugh, PhD, Director of Climate Change studies in North America thesis.


One argument that seems to be getting plenty of airtime lately is the "it's the sun's fault" idea. So I'll start there.

THE SUN IS WARMING ALL THE PLANETS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM, EARTH INCLUDED. IT'S THE SUN'S FAULT.

The idea is that sunspots, or the variable brightness of our nearest star, could be affecting the incoming solar radiation on our planet and the rest of the system.

Yet, climate models already incorporate the variability of solar output on Earth's climate.

From National Geographic:

The sun's energy output varies slightly as sunspots wax and wane on the star's surface.


But sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present, research suggests.


The difference in brightness between the high point of a sunspot cycle and its low point is less than 0.1 percent of the sun's total output.


"If you run that back in time to the 17th century using sunspot records, you'll find that this amplitude variance is negligible for climate," Foukal said.


The researchers obtained accurate daily sunspot measurements dating as far back as 1874 from institutions such as the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California, and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England.

Other scientists are quoted in the article saying we don't know what else might be coming from the sun to create such an effect, but it's possible. True. We probably don't know all there is to know about the sun.

MARS AND PLUTO ARE WARMING, JUST AS THE OTHER PLANETS ARE... IT'S NOT OUR FAULT

So it must be the sun. Except we discounted that (for the most part) above.

From the Grist Mill (accepting a left-bend in rhetoric here since I think it's cited science w/o propaganda):

As for the alleged extraterrestrial warming, there is extremely little evidence of a global climate change on Mars. The only piece I'm aware of is a series of photographs of a single icy region in the southern hemisphere that shows melting over a six year period (about three Martian years).


Here on earth we have direct measurements from all over the globe, widespread glacial retreat, reduction of sea ice, and satellite measurements of the lower troposphere up to the stratosphere. To compare this mountain of data to a few photographs of a single region on another planet strains credulity. And in fact, the relevant scientists believe the observation described above is the result of a regional change caused by Mars' own orbital cycles, like what happened during the earth's glacial cycles.


See Global Warming on Mars? from RealClimate for much more detail about this issue.


Turning to the outer reaches of the solar system: in the icy cold and lonely Kuiper Belt was observed a difference in Pluto's atmospheric thickness, inferred from two occultation observations 14 years apart. But a cursory glance at Pluto's orbit and atmosphere reveals how ridiculous it is to draw any conclusions about climate, much less climate change, from observations spanning less than even a single season, let alone enough years to even establish the climate's normal state.

A RECENT PRESS RELEASE FROM THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE SAID GLOBAL WARMING WAS DISPROVEN

Oh really? And the rest of us missed that somehow?

How about this nugget for thought...

Skeptics gathered in New York this weekend for a global warming denial conference. They paid their speakers to speak... unlike other science conferences where being asked to speak IS the honor. From Source Watch:

The Heartland Institute, according to the Institute's web site, is a nonprofit organization "to discover and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems". [1] It campaigns on what it calls "junk science", "common-sense environmentalism" (i.e. anti-Kyoto, pro-GM), the privatization of public services, smokers' rights (anti-tobacco tax, denial of problems from passive smoking), the introduction of school vouchers, and the deregulation of health care insurance. It also provides an online resource for finding right-wing think tank policy documents called PolicyBot.

And these are the people who gathered in New York, as described by an article in Harpers Weekly in 1995:

The skeptics assert flatly that their science is untainted by funding. Nevertheless, in this persistent and well-funded campaign of denial they have become interchangeable ornaments on the hood of a high-powered engine of disinformation. Their dissenting opinions are amplified beyond all proportion through the media while the concerns of the dominant majority of the world's scientific establishment are marginalized.

AL GORE ISN'T GREEN
To which I always say... it's not about Al Gore. It's about the planet and our way of life. Gore may be a messenger... on or off message at times. But he's still just a messenger. There are many others to listen to if you don't like Gore's "dash D" behind his name.



Well... it's not a great apologetic list... but it's a start and it has the brain juices going again. Stand by for more soon.

There's more: "Global warming skeptics live among us" >>

At the End of the Day

Guess who? That's right, until Apollo is back in fine fettle, you're left at my dyslexic mercies. Where is your dog now?!

• This is not really political, but it is an example of some of the worst kind of corporate chicanery you can imagine. No lives lost (as far as I know) but millions upon millions of investor and consumer dollars (and yen, and euros, etc.) have been consumed by the HD DVD/Blu Ray format war.

HD DVD, the beloved format of Toshiba and three Hollywood studios, died Friday after a brief illness. The cause of death was determined to be the decision by Wal-Mart to stock only high-definition DVDs and players using the Blu-ray format.

I've not had the misfortune of investing in either format, so I'm not fanboy of either. But, like the years ago format war between Betamax and VHS, it would seem that once again, the better format lost out (ironically, this time, Sony was the purveyor of the inferior format). As one pundit noted, regarding the whole mishegas, HD DVD is a product, Blu Ray is a theory. But, $$$ talks.

Sony was between a rock and a hard place, if they lost the Blu-Ray fight the PS3 would have been collateral damage and the impact on Sony financially might have been terminal. This means that Sony, much like anyone fighting for their life, was willing to do almost anything to ensure they didn’t fail.

As in, Sony bribed the living hell out of every studio in Hollywood.

• Here we go, ever so much closer to $100 per barrel.

World oil prices advanced on Friday towards 100 dollars per barrel, briefly topping 96 dollars, as geopolitical jitters stemming from Nigeria and Venezuela stoked global supply concerns, traders said.

Those market fears overshadowed a gloomy warning from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who predicted "a period of sluggish growth" ahead for the energy-hungry US economy.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, won 43 cents to 95.89 dollars a barrel, after rising as high as 96.05 dollars -- which was last seen on January 9.

Stand down, Al. We're doin' just fine.

Al Gore on the second ballot: A scenario that a few weeks ago seemed preposterous is beginning to look plausible to some nervous Democrats looking for a way out of the deadlock between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It goes like this: We love them both, but neither is a sure bet when it comes to electability. It's not about gender and race, each has more mundane vulnerabilities. Hillary's negatives will drive white men to John McCain; Obama's inexperience will require a gut check on the part of voters. What if the super delegates decide not to decide, denying either candidate the requisite number of delegates to secure the party's nomination. Democrats want to win. The new rallying cry: Gore on the second ballot.

Oh, and Eleanor? Shut the hell up, already. We're all so very tired of ye creatures of the noise machine, no matter where on the political spectrum you may fall.

• February's halfway over, and now I don't think I mind I missed my flu shot this year.

Nationwide, 4.6 percent of flu samples tested have shown signs of drug resistance this season, said officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In previous years, resistance to the drug hovered below 1 percent of all cases.

"We have seen this before, though not at this level," said Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of epidemiology and prevention in the CDC's influenza division.

The worry among some experts is that flu strains could develop resistance to more than one drug, leaving doctors with few options for treating severely ill patients. One way that could happen would be for patients to get infected with two flu strains at once, each with resistance to a different type of anti-viral medication.

Have a good weekend. Don't take any sub-prime nickels.

There's more: "At the End of the Day" >>

At the end of the day

Clinton radio ad -- "The ad properly points out that Obama did not express any criticism of the GOP ideas. That is the problem." Per Armando. The alleged "party of ideas" that has "challenge[d] conventional wisdom of the last 10 or 15 years" has really, um, sucked. I can think of a list longer than what's in Hillary's ad.

FISA telecom immunity disunity -- Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will force "Dodd and Feingold to launch a filibuster that ruins their colleagues' nice European vacation." Why doesn't Reid STFU and get out of the way?! For details and what to do, see Yellow Dog.

Up yours to the U.S. Senate -- Bush re-nominated Steven Bradbury to head the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. Bradbury wrote "a pair of secret legal opinions that endorsed rough techniques for suspects in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency." TP

American evangelicals -- What do they want? "The answer, it turns out, is a little more complicated than 'Not Giuliani.' " Response to a Beliefnet questionnaire on favorability ratings of presidential candidates: 55% Huck, 53% McCain, 49% Obama, 27% Hillary, and 25% Mitt. For evangelical "hot-buttons" and how they've changed, read Tim Grieve.

Iraq debate: "The leading Democratic presidential candidates and their allies on Capitol Hill have launched fierce attacks in recent days on a White House plan to forge a new, long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government, complaining that the administration is trying to lock in a lasting U.S. military presence in Iraq before the next president takes office." Thursday's WaPo

Iraq explosions -- In Mosul, at least 15 killed, 132 wounded. In Kirkuk, a car bomb killed 5, wounded 11.

Environmental index: "A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list." NYT

About those robo calls -- In comments, Shaun Dakin, CEO and founder of Stop Political Calls wrote, "These calls are an epidemic and are invading the privacy of All American Voters.... ...Our members are taking a stand and saying enough is enough at the National Political Do Not Contact Registry..."

Former SC Democratic Party chair Dick Harpootlian, an Obama supporter, likened Bill Clinton's campaign remarks to Lee Atwater. WTF? When CNN's Jessica Yellin asked Bill about it, Clinton disputed the charge and calmly confronted her and media in general -- despite CNN's hype that he "lashed out" -- for acting like the sensationalizing twits that they are. Later, CNN 's Soledad O'Brien screeched about Bill's response to Yellin. Media lapdogs don't like being called on their B.S. You can go Cheney yourself, CNN. Via Taylor Marsh.

"The rot of the Jack Welch Network" -- "For the record, the Post is a corporate partner of MSNBC—and Clinton is MSNBC’s long-term target. Simple logic took over from there. So did Jack Welch’s vile methods.... ...But in this morning’s New York Times, a certain semi-sane op-ed columnist gets busy trashing Hillary Clinton—due to Obama’s bit of deception." By Bob Somerby. For a fun pic of that certain NYT columnist, see Blue Girl.

Michael Savage gets the boot: Four advertisers pulled their spots "after Brave New Films launched a campaign against [the] hate-radio host." Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh.

UPDATE: Al Gore endorsed gay marriage. Video at Raw Story.

[That's all...no more after the jump.]

There's more: "At the end of the day" >>

TIME picks Putin

TIME managing editor Richard Stengel just couldn't bring himself to pick runner-up Al Gore -- "the kind of leader these times require" -- or TIME readers' No. 1 online poll favorite, J.K. Rowling. When it came down to the decision, TIME selected Vladimir Putin as Person of the Year 2007.

Part of TIME's reasoning:

It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice...

I'm sure Stengel's final answer pleases Pootie Poot's psychic friends connection at the Bush WH.

[That's all. No more after the break.]

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My further take on Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, “A Woman in Charge” and the 2008 race

About a month ago, I put up a piece on my take on the degree of “split” between Gore on the one hand, and Hillary and Bill Clinton on the other, over Hillary and Al’s competition for Bill’s support in their respective 2000 races.

Commenter TJM accused me of doing the work of A. The Republican Party and B. “The Village” in taking Sally Bedell Smith’s interview in Vanity Fair in advance of her book.

Well, I just got done reading Carl Bernstein’s bio of Hillary, “A Woman in Charge,” which I would at least give a solid four-star rating. It’s sympathetic, while yet well-researched. The fact that both Clintons ultimately chose not to cooperate speaks volumes, to me.

Anyhow, while Bernstein certainly has an armlist of MSM credentials, I certainly wouldn’t consider him a captive of the Beltway, certainly not to the degree his Watergate cohort Woodward has become.

Now, that said, Bernstein also notes, in agreement with Smith, how tension between Al and Hillary already started at the beginning of Bill’s first term, and, from the moment Bill said she was going to get a West Wing office.

So, I’ll stand by not only the Hillary-Al issues comments of the original post, but my assertion that they played a part in Gore not running this year.

On the flip side, as a newspaper journalist, I’m sad. The potential blood on the floor from, let’s say, a grudge match, would have been spectacular.

Oh, and contrary to TJM’s assertion at that time, I’m not a reactionary.

Interesting how a “gadfly” can get banned from Kos for being too Green and then called a reactionary by somebody else.

There's more: "My further take on Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, “A Woman in Charge” and the 2008 race" >>

Debunking polarization

Ed Kilgore makes a valid point in discussing "down ballot" races and the perceived polarizing effect of a Hillary Clinton candidancy:

Negative as well as positive enthusiasm towards candidates is often overrated, since "bonus votes" are not rewarded for the intensity of voter preferences. And as [Tom Schaller of New Republic] notes, Obama-hatred or Edwards-hatred might well emerge on the Right if either of those men won the nomination. But the anecdotal case you often hear about Clinton is that she is polarizing in an unbalanced way: her nomination would strongly motivate conservatives who think she's a dedicated socialist and one-worlder, while discouraging progressives who think she's a warmongering corporate puppet. (You even hear the reverse argument made about Edwards, i.e., that he's usefully perceived by Republicans and independents as more "centrist" than he actually is).

Interesting as they are, such theories about HRC's effect on the electorate would have more power if there was any objective evidence for them. So far, polls testing various Democratic candidates against Republican rivals in specific states (mainly those conducted by SurveyUSA) show her doing as well as or better than Obama and Edwards in most states, and doing quite well in red and purple states. To be a "drag" on the ticket down-ballot in a lot of states, you have to actually lose them, and lose them badly. To put it most simply, it's hard to get too obsessed about the down-ballot "damage" that might be inflicted by a candidate who's currently running four points ahead of Rudy Giuliani in Kentucky.

I have no doubt that whoever gets the Democratic nomination, the Repub attack machine will slash and burn the nominee. Polarization via divisive wedge issues is what Repubs and their vast noise machine do best. In considering GOP candidates, you won't hear much about how their candidates divide America. Proof?

[Keep reading...]

A blast from the past:

I'm a uniter, not a divider.

Not much news squawk dubbed Bush as a polarizing figure when he ran for the presidency in 2000. But Al Gore? And now Hillary? A sample from our rotting press corpse courtesy Bob Somerby:

WALSH (12/14/00): Gore simply does not have the charisma, the power, the emotional reach to heal the partisan divide right now. Despite his history of bipartisanship in the Senate, he's become a hectoring, polarizing figure.

And another:

''Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is—and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?—can bring the country together.

First off, let me opine that anyone who runs for the presidency had best have some fucking incredible ambition. Secondly, the world, IMO, will respond more favorably to a Democratic president -- anyone of the Democrats -- than a Bush clone like Rudy or Mitt. So enough with the polarization claptrap.

Eric Weiner writing for the LATimes offered a different approach to the polarization subject during the 2004 presidential campaign:

Candidates don't talk about their shared positions; they need to highlight their differences. Meanwhile, the media magnify those differences because it makes a better story. The result is the illusion of a polarized nation. After all, with the proper lens and the right light, any decent photographer can make a tiny stream look like the Mississippi.

The question is: Why does the American public so readily embrace this myth of polarization? Partly, I think, because it makes us feel good, reinforcing the sense that we are engaged in a feisty debate about issues that really matter. If we disagree so loudly, the logic goes, then surely democracy must be alive and well.

The advent of talk radio (to date mostly right wing, but that is about to change), along with cable TV shout-a-thons and high-octane websites, has fueled the myth of polarization.

I don't know that I agree with Weiner entirely because he didn't delve into who's ferociously spread the "myth of polarization" and why... at least not to the detail that I would like.

I've long disagreed with the divisiveness attributed to Hillary and previously to Al Gore and indubitably coming soon to the next Democratic presidential nominee. Hell, that's what they say and I don't cotton to hand-wringing, forked-tongue millionaire pundits and D.C. consultants who have ulterior motives to hype how polarizing he or she is. The meme has infiltrated our public discourse and culture so markedly that I've fallen under its influence upon occasion. Time to snap out of it!

So when you hear how polarizing Hillary, Edwards, Obama, Richardson et al are or will be, which in turns implicitly questions their electability, ask yourself who benefits by promoting such a proposition? Put another quarter in the rightwing Mighty Wurlitzer and you'll find out.

There's more: "Debunking polarization" >>

The U.N. — where Gore really belongs in a few years

In a little under a decade, the U.N. Secretary-General position will open again, and, IIRC, it will be the Americas’ turn to put forth the “consensus” candidate, per the informal global rotation.

Doorknob bless Gore and some people still pushing him for president, but it’s pretty clear to me that he could do a better job running the U.N.

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Bill, Hillary and Al: The troika splits and part of why Gore lost in 2000

In addition to how much the MSM might have picked on Gore and given Bush the nod of the soft bigotry of low expectations, there were more legitimate reasons for Gore’s loss, and I’m not talking butterfly ballots or Ralph Nader.

Gore was sometimes wooden, sometimes preachy on the stump, and like it or not, American presidential contests are in part about personality.

But, there was another reason. Besides Gore’s concern about distancing himself from Clinton, the distancing went both ways.

In the new Vanity Fair, Clinton White House staffer Sally Bedell Smith spills all sorts of beans including:

1. Bill and Hillary really were co-presidents of a sort in many of their workings
2. Bill basically felt he owned Hillary anything she wanted in the way of Senate race support, fundraising, etc. in exchange for her having stood beside him in l’affaire Lewinsky.
3. From the time she decided to run for Moynihan’s Senate seat almost immediately after Pat announced his retirement, Hillary made a conscious effort to cut Al out of the loop of the lion’s share of Bill’s support, and to cut Tipper out of her personal ring as well.
4. Well, well, before this, Al and Hillary competed strongly, not just competed, but strongly, for Bill’s ear. And, often, Al was the fifth wheel or odd man out, take your pick.
5. Smith also rehashes some of the subtle putdowns (not nearly as bad as Ike for Dick in 1960 but putdowns, nonetheless) Bill had for Al.

This, to me, does a fair amount of explaining why Al isn’t running for president.

I don’t doubt that he’s not 100 percent interested right now, but the Hillary factor is at play.

He’d have to compete with her for former WH staffers and fundraisers, for one thing. For another, the contest, because of everything listed above, if entered by Al, could have gotten very personal, even fratricidal/sororicidal, very quickly.

The VF article is an excerpt from Smith’s upcoming book, “For Love of Politics—Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years.”

There's more: "Bill, Hillary and Al: The troika splits and part of why Gore lost in 2000" >>

Our Rotting Press Corpse

Our main charter here at WTWC is to hold our congress-critters and candidates accountable and to work to elect real Democrats. Yet, another critical sphere of influence to address in our public discourse -- and an urgent message to get the word out to voters -- is how our corrupt mainstream press operates in swaying opinions, and thus, elections. On that score, no one, IMO, has more consistently dissected our rotting press corpse over the years than Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler.

Yesterday, Bob's erudite commentary explained what our “mainstream press corps” won’t tell you. Read Somerby's whole post, which included the falsetto note sung by Dana Milbank on Social Security, Medicare, and retiring Baby Boomers. What motivates a Washington Post political reporter to assert that, "the 80 million-strong baby-boom generation, which, starting next year, will begin to bankrupt the nation," and imply that he knows more than Alan Greenspan might be a great cosmic mystery unless one follows the filthy lucre that prods our Beltway choir boys to croon repeatedly off-key. Or, as we might speculate in the South where I live, maybe Milbank fell cattywampus overwhelmed with a severe case of the vapors. The smell of money can make some folks swoon.

For now, turn to a few revealing quotes.

Courtesy of Bob Somerby [his emphasis in bold and full transcript at The Daily Howler link above]:

From that day to this, members of the mainstream press corps have tried to keep the public from knowing about that remarkable episode [of the "War on Gore."]. But out in the country, some observers do know what happened. Take Neal Gabler of USC’s Annenberg Center, for example. On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, the panel discussed the press coverage of Gore’s Nobel Prize. Because the segment was so illuminating, we’ll post the transcript in full. Gabler clearly understands his country’s recent presspolitical history—and Jane Hall, of the American University, quickly chimed in too....

[...]

GABLER: To me, what is interesting is last month Vanity Fair had a piece talking about the war against Gore, how the media—not the right-wing media; [Peretz] wasn't talking about Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, she was talking about Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd and Ceci Connolly—and how they went after Gore to destroy him. And that is something that's very, very interesting. The media needs to pay penance for that, for what they did to Al Gore and the country as a result.

[...]

JANE HALL: Neal is right. I wrote about this in 2000 and analyzed stories in the New York Times. Media completely differently treated Gore and Bush. They loved Bush. It's in the face of what everybody thinks. It's not true.

Now he doesn't need to run. Why would he want to invite the coverage? He's getting the praise now. The Vanna White principle, he's loved now. If he opens his mouth, everybody will go after him.

[CAL] THOMAS: Al Gore to the media is a secular messiah. He will deliver us from our flatulence and other things causing the global warming. This is the religion of much of the secular left-wing media. He's the perfect messiah figure. He doesn't require a lot of stuff out of us other than we give up our lifestyle and the way we have lived for many years.

GABLER: Secular left-wing media! Let me read something—from the, Vanity Fair quoted—Margaret Carlson said to Don Imus. "You can disprove what Bush was saying if you get in the weeds and get out your calculator or look at his record in Texas. But it's real easy and fun to disprove Al Gore as a sport, as our enterprise. Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining." It cost him the presidency of the United States.

Yes, folks. If mainstream journalists and pundits hadn't played favorites by propping up the smirking frat boy from Texas -- if they had dug up the truth about Bush as the late, great columnist Molly Ivins did instead of wagging their tongues with lies about Gore -- I daresay Al would have won Election 2000 by a landslide. Instead, look at the disastrous presidency we got!

Why does what happened seven years ago matter now? Isn't it obvious?

Don't hesitate to think for one nanosecond that our press zombies who mauled Al Gore in 2000 aren't hankering to gnaw the next Democratic presidential nominee. Remember the swift-boating of Kerry in 2004? Nary a whimper escaped from our fatted media lapdog throats. Asleep, bellies heaped full of hush puppies snagged from their corporate doggie bags, they snored. To quote Somerby from an email exchange, "Presumably, this will inevitably happen when a press corps is run by multimillionaires." Silence is truly golden. Of course, they awaken to snarl on cue when corporate masters coax, "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

I dunno how we can resurrect our fetid press corpse. What matters most now is informing the electorate what the news media isn't reporting and their distortions, lies, and petty complaints (Edwards' hair, Hillary's cackle, and Obama's middle name) that have nothing to do with choosing who's best to lead our nation.

They tarred and feathered Gore in 2000. The carnage continued against Kerry in 2004. We cannot let it happen again in 2008.

RELATED LINK: Evgenia Peretz's Going After Gore at Vanity Fair, October 2007.

There's more: "Our Rotting Press Corpse" >>

Grumpy Old Neobloviators Kristol and Krauthammer Attack Al Gore For Winning The Nobel Prize

When I watched this piece this morning I was taken by how out step the neobloviators on Fox News Sunday seem to have become. Here they sound like a couple of grumpy old men who life has passed by. They shamelessly attack an American for winning the Nobel Prize and belittle the very notion of peace. All while besmirching the efforts of the Nobel committee. Maura Liason and Juan Williams give tepid opposition to the vitriol pumped out by Kristol and Krauthammer.







The tragedy is that Fox News felt it appropriate to feature Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer's pathetic attacks on Al Gore. Kristol and Krauthammer are both neocon dead enders who envision America as the new Roman Empire and who both hate the very idea of world peace. Isn't it about time Americans just stood up to Fox News and said enough already. We have given the neobloviators vision of Republican resource colonialism a chance. It doesn't work. Send both of them to a retirement home where they can harmlessly reminisce about how they would have won if Bush just had the balls to kill a few million more Iraqis.

I for one am tired of all their crap. Aren't you? Do yourselves a favor. Watch something else. Anything else. I know I watched Fox News Sunday for the very last time today. I for one am too young to spend time listening to grumpy old failures complain. Spread the word. Just say NO to Fox News Sunday.

Rackjite1's video should be tonight's funny, but it isn't. Giving vocal promoters of hate like both Kristol and Krauthammer, who are dedicated proponents of death a national soapbox to trash a real American who is actively trying to make the world a better place just isn't funny. I will try to find something funny.

There's more: "Grumpy Old Neobloviators Kristol and Krauthammer Attack Al Gore For Winning The Nobel Prize" >>

Al Gore Wins The Nobel Peace Prize!

Can we please re-elect this man President already? From the Washington Post:

OSLO, Norway -- President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures needed to counteract it.

Gore, who won an Academy Award [Oscar (tm)] this year for his film "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, had been widely expected to win the prize.

There's more: "Al Gore Wins The Nobel Peace Prize!" >>

Live Earth

I will be at a Live Earth watching party tonight. I am interested in the pre-concert candidate questionnaire time, too. If I remember, I will post some impressions later tonight.

That said, I am a bit ambivalent about such things. How well do all the rock groups involved practice what they preach, or sing, on global warming? If they don’t, how much of a backlash does it produce? Even if they do, are ordinary people skeptical that they can’t afford to do this?

I say this in part because Gore, bless his work, is precisely this type of target.

I don’t claim to have the answers for any of these rhetorical questions, I just know that they’re out there.

There's more: "Live Earth" >>

Still unanswered -- What liberal media?

From left to right, top to bottom: The Two George Bushes in 1990; President-elect Bill Clinton in 1992; Newt Gingrich in 1995; Ken Starr and Bill Clinton, The Impeachment of the President 1998; President-elect George W. Bush in 2000; Rudy Giuliani, Tower of Strength in 2001; President George W. Bush, American Revolutionary in 2004.
Of American politicians since 1990, TIME picked one Democrat twice versus five Republicans six times for Person of the Year. Will news media in general continue to favor Republicans? You betcha. They've been at it a long time.

Bob Somerby explained on Friday--quoting Paul Krugman's candid assessment--how the SCLM helped to elect Bush and now is set to sway the 2008 election for Repubs. Read on beginning with Krugman:

In Tuesday's Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan's birthday....

...Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven't changed a bit.

You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies—for example, when he declared of his tax cut that ''the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.'' That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates' acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes—failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush's dishonesty. And that's how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now Bob:

You won’t read that in your “liberal” journals, where the careful and clever young lads and ladies don’t want to blow future celebrity careers. But in those paragraphs, Krugman is telling a massively important and massively suppressed story. If the public is going to understand modern politics, it has to understand the various parts of this 15-year story. In those paragraphs, Krugman discusses one crucial part of the tale.

Because we’ve discussed this part of the 15-year story ourselves, let’s offer a few small comments about what Krugman has said.

First: Yes! Candidate Bush did “get within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency” because of the bad media habits Krugman discusses this morning. This very week, we got an e-mail saying that the Bob Herberts of the world didn’t send Bush to the White House; everyone knows that Chief Justice Rehnquist’s Supreme Court did that, our e-mailer said. But Campaign 2000 would never have been reached the Court if the press corps hadn’t misbehaved, for two years, in the manner Krugman describes. Will we ever get the simplest parts of this logic clear in our heads? If we have to wait for help from our “liberal” journals, the answer is clear on that: No.

Click the link for the rest of Bob's insights. And when you get a chance, give Krugman a hat tip (krugman@nytimes.com) for nailing the press on its preferential treatment of the GOP. With a few exceptions, he's standing alone.

Folks, if we intend to take back our country, we have to hold media accountable by writing, calling, and complaining. That's what the rightwing has done for decades. We have to, as I mentioned previously, work the refs. So let's give 'em hell for failing to check the facts about what the 2008 GOP candidates have said and will say. Voter opinions are at risk.

POSTSCRIPT: Hey! Look over there, America! It's Paris Hilton. Really big issues facing the nation and your future? Oh, pay no attention. It's only Al Gore.

There's more: "Still unanswered -- What liberal media?" >>

Al Gore's Friends Quietly Prepare for Run

He hasn't lost a lot of weight. He says he is focusing on global climate change. He says he hasn't thrown his hat in the ring. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have raised record amounts and the race is in full swing. Despite all that, Al Gore's Friends are secretly assembling a campaign organization. There are several draft Gore websites. Here are a few: draftgore.com, algore.org,thePetitionSite.com,electGore2008.com,the Petitiononline.com. Is a movement building? Only time will tell. It is going to be a very interesting summer.

There's more: "Al Gore's Friends Quietly Prepare for Run" >>

Educating Congress One Representative at a Time

The Seattle Times has printed its periodic update of the goings-on of Western Washington's Congressional delegation, and there's, unfortunately, not much to discuss. Other than some bland entries about Rep. Inslee and Sen. Murray trying to secure Boeing an Air force tanker contract, and Maria Cantwell breaking the ice on the Today show, it doesn't look like the Washington delegation is rousing much of the rabble. However, the entry at the end of the article amused me.

Dave Reichhert (R WA-8) squeaked by the last election in what should have been a cakewalk for him. His district is made primarily of upper-middle class professionals and Microsoft Millionaires who love tax-breaks on their income, their spending, and their SUVs, and care little for much else. His democratic opponent, Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft exec, ran a pretty pathetic campaign against him - nothing substantive, just pictures of Reichert with Bush. As a junior member of Congress, he wasn't in a position to do much while in the majority, and by and large, his voting record was in-step with his constituency (small government, low taxes, and generally environmental). Other than claiming that, perhaps, he didn't actually catch the Green River Killer, Burner was cursed from the outset.

However, Reichert pulled a classic Republican move when asked about his position on global warming; sure, it might be happening, but is it really our fault? Well, it seems as though Congressman Reichert has decided to get to the bottom of the whole "debate" and is trying to set up a meeting with none other than AL GORE to try to figure it all out.

Rep. Dave Reichert , whose questioning comments on global warming were derided by environmentalists during his re-election campaign last fall, wants to learn more about the issue.

His preferred teacher: Mr. Global Warming himself, former Vice President Al Gore.

Reichert, R-Auburn, has asked [Rep. Norm] Dicks to set up a meeting with Gore, whose global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" became a national sensation.

During a campaign rally in Seattle in October, Gore scoffed when told that Reichert said he was unsure of the role humans play in global warming.

Dicks humorously suggested a couple of months ago that Reichert and Gore talk, and now Reichert is ready with his notepad. No word yet from Gore.

Seriously.

Last week I noted that a local school district had put a moratorium on viewings of An Inconvenient Truth, due to perceived (and in my opinion, ultimately unfounded) biases in the film. I can only hope that this endorsement of Gore and his film by a Republican Congressman will finally put to rest the bull-shit claim that An Inconvenient Truth somehow skews the scientific consensus regarding this pressing problem.

There's more: "Educating Congress One Representative at a Time" >>

An Inconvenient 'Moratorium'

The Federal Way School District - located about 20 miles south of Seattle - has put the viewing of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth on moratorium until the superintendent has an opportunity to review the district's regulations on biased materials in the class, per Seattle Times reporting.

I don't take issue with the policy per se, but rather, the assumption that Al Gore's film might be biased. First, I don't think that bias is that big a deal. It's impossible to avoid bias in one's writing, research, reporting, or rhetoric - everyone has normative values and assumptions that inform one's interpretation of data and events. What's important, however, is the identification of one's potential biases, and whether or not one's research methodologies take such potential biases into account. The scientific method has been developed in such a way as to mitigate one's bias as a potential variable which might effect the interpretation of possible outcomes. A district policy which attempts to preempt the politicization of youth by teachers by way of their instructional materials is certainly appropriate, as the goal of educational institutions is not to necessarily convince students of a point of view, but rather, to give them the skills to come to their own reasonable conclusions given evidence and theory.

The rub: One of the pertinent district policies

"states that, 'when it is necessary to use historical or literary works, periodicals, and technical journals which show bias, staff members have a responsibility to point out the biases, and present additional information and perspectives to balance those biases.' "

For those of you who have seen An Inconvenient Truth, it is pretty obvious that Al Gore isn't using a lot (if any) normative judgements. He cites firm scientific consensus, and builds his argument around firm statistics and data well within the constraints of the scientific method. Science, by definition, cannot be biased. Global warming isn't a liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, issue - it's a scientific issue. Data cannot be considered biased, it simply is what it is. Al Gore has a hypothesis - that human activity contributes to global warming, and that unless something is done about it soon, the effects might very well be unadaptable. He explores this hypothesis soundly, and uses theoretical frameworks which have been well accepted by the scientific community via study replication by numerous scholars and scholarly institutions. This documentary does not fall under the cited district policy. Assuming it does, then the district had better reconsider showing March of the Penguins or any number of Carl Sagan's Cal Tech astrophysics documentaries.

Given the negative reaction the district has received from the community at large, I'm sure that this controversy will end with the vindication of Gore's film. It's just unfortunate that the Federal Way School Board caved in so quickly to the demands of a vocal, and misinformed, minority.

There's more: "An Inconvenient 'Moratorium'" >>