AGREEMENT, THEN AND NOW: Remarkable! In a remarkable passage
in today’s Post, Juliet Eilperin describes a growing consensus about global warming. Good grief! Even Craig has signed on:
EILPERIN (7/22/05): Several committee Republicans, including some who had questioned climate change predictions in the past, said they agree the world has reached a scientific consensus on global warming.
"I have come to believe, along with many of my colleagues, that there is a substantial human effect on the environment," said Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), who has opposed mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and voted against last month's "sense of the Senate" resolution on climate change. Some GOP senators, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), went further. In an interview, Murkowski said that "there's an emerging consensus we've got to deal" with climate change, adding it would be "tough" to cut greenhouse gases sufficiently through voluntary programs alone.
Again, we thought of Candidate Gore—and, again, we thought of the way Karl Rove wormed his way into the White House. Gore, of course, wrote the book on warming (
Earth in the Balance, 1992), having pioneered the topic in the Congress during the 1980s. But what was said about his book when he ran for the White House? Of course! The key talking-point, accepted by all, was a bit of brainless ridicule. In March 1999, the War Against Gore was in its first days. So “Kit” Seelye rushed the spin-point into the Times—
Al Gore wants to get rid of cars!
SEELYE (3/16/99): Republicans have poked fun at Mr. Gore for directing a Presidential campaign to such seemingly small issues as lost bags at airports and such seemingly local issues as traffic congestion. Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has been particularly scathing, accusing Mr. Gore of trying to "do away with the internal combustion engine, the automobile," and calling him "an apologist for the President; he's a wasteful dreamer.”
Al Gore wants to “do away with the automobile!” Seelye repeated Nicholson’s claim, but absent-mindedly forget to mention how blatantly idiotic it was. And over the course of the next twenty months, this was the press corps’ Standard Way to handle
Earth in the Balance. Gore wants to ban internal combustion! Gore wants to do away with the car! Indeed, a silly variant of the idiot claim even survives in John Harris’ new book, reminding us that the insider press corps never gives up its
faux tales.
Today, the parties approach agreement on warming. But Gore, the guy who sounded the call, was ridiculed for his insight during Campaign 2000—the campaign that transformed American life. And did your fiery liberal heroes complain about this drumbeat of ridicule? Of course not! At THE HOWLER, we discussed this point again and again, but go ahead—just find someone else who did so! Today, they pander to you about Rove, then ask you to please send them twenty-five dollars. But their silence during that twenty-month war is what put King Karl into the White House. When you hear them yell about Rove today, remember what they did when it mattered. Everyone agrees on warming—today. But then, everyone agreed during Campaign 2000 as well! Everyone agreed to mock Candidate Gore—and your heroes agreed to keep quiet.
I would just like your answer to this question.
