The roundtable segment of Tuesday's The Situation Room offered CNN viewers opposite takes on the Bush administration's culpability in the rise of oil prices with Jack Cafferty and David Gergen on opposite ends. Cafferty, who has a history of blaming high oil prices on President Bush, argued that the administration's "idea of an energy policy is to put Dick Cheney in a closed, locked room out of sight of the public with some guys from Enron and some oil company guys, hammer out some kind of a deal, and then sit back and watch oil prices go from $28 when Bush was inaugurated to $111 now."

But Gergen later jumped into the discussion to explain the true origin of oil prices: "I think it's wrong to argue or suggest that somehow the oil companies have been manipulating these prices upward. These prices have not been, you know, rising sky high because of the Bush administration. They've been rising sky high because world demand is up so significantly."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Tuesday April 1 The Situation Room on CNN:

For months, NewsBusters has jokingly referred to global warming as the liberal bogeyman.

In a recently released horror film entitled "The Last Winter," this tongue-in-cheek reference became reality as the evil apparition embodied by man's insatiable lust for fossil fuels actually comes to life to kill oil workers in Alaska.

In effect, Mother Nature is so displeased with oil exploration that she begins targeting those involved in such dastardly deeds.

I'm really not kidding, folks.

The following is a synopsis of the movie as published at Antidote Film's website (emphasis added, reader is strongly encouraged to protect electronics from uncontrollable bouts of laughter):

The new year is beginning with some very serious shots being fired across the bow of the manmade global warming myth and at alarmists using it to advance their deplorable agendas.

Moments after Investor's Business Daily presaged that "2008 just might be the year the so-called scientific consensus that man is causing the Earth to warm begins to crack," the New York Times of all entities published a rather shocking piece pointing fingers at folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore for being part of a group of "activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels."

This from the New York Times?

Hold on tightly to your seats, folks, for the shocks in this piece came early and often (emphasis added throughout):

Thomas Fingar, the Deputy Director of Analysis for the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is the media rock star of the moment.

Why? For the just released NIE assessment he co-authored that proffers with "high confidence" that Iranian nuclear weapon development came to a halt in 2003.

This lands him myriad press plaudits because it affords them yet another opportunity to bash President George W. Bush.

However, those with any sort of political memory recall a July 11, 2007 Congressional appearance by the very same Thomas Fingar. Just these scant four months ago, he gave the House Armed Services Committee a very different "high confidence" perspective on Iran and their efforts to develop the bomb.

Surprisingly, CNN, during its Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, asked a numbers of questions that conservatives might propose on Thursday night. During the first hour of the debate, moderators Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown, and John Roberts asked a total of 13 questions (not counting follow-up questions) on a number of issues. Of these, five could be considered to be "conservative."

Campbell Brown directed the first such question to Barack Obama. "Senator Obama, I want to ask you about immigration....What do you say to those Americans who say they are losing out because you would give benefits to people who broke the laws of this country, who came here illegally. And then more generally, as president, where do you draw the line when it comes to benefits for illegal immigrants?"

"Stop, hey, what's that sound?" Nuclear power getting put down. Again.

In 1979, musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, and Jackson Browne were hailed "the energy source everyone had been looking for" to fight against nuclear power. The result of their support was termed a "chain reaction." The group has returned, picking up where it left off nearly 30 years ago.

And what better to bridge the gap into the new millennium than YouTube. (Video after the break)

Coal-fired electric power plants might be in danger of extinction at the hands of global warming alarmists, possibly setting the nation up for a looming energy crisis like none it's ever experienced.

Yet, for the most part, national media outlets have been quite silent on this issue, making it appear that green press members don't want the public to understand the real ramifications of solutions being offered by climate alarmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.).

For some background, on October 20, NewsBusters reported a decision by the State of Kansas to deny an electricity producer a license to build coal-fired power plants citing global warming concerns as one of the primary reasons. As it turns out, this wasn't the first such incident, as the Associated Press reported on October 18 (h/t NBer dscott):

While everybody on the face of the planet seems most interested in whether or not Nobel Laureate Al Gore is going to run for president in 2008, an article was published by Slate Monday asking questions of the Global Warmingist-in-Chief far more crucial than his future political aspirations.

Though Steven Landsburg is likely not a household name, his article deliciously entitled "Save the Earth in Six Hard Questions: What Al Gore doesn't understand about climate change," should be must-reading for all Americans - including elected officials - that are seriously pondering radical changes to energy and economic policies in order to address the most recent environmental bogeyman.

Unlike most articles on this subject, Landsburg, a PhD-wielding economics professor at the University of Rochester, took a purely pragmatic and arithmetic approach (emphasis added throughout):

NewsBusters readers are well aware of the recent controversy involving Al Gore’s schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

A few weeks ago, a British judge cited nine errors in the film. Team Gore responded Thursday in a rebuttal published at the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog.

Now, famed climate change skeptic Christopher Monckton, in a detailed report published by the Science and Public Policy Institute, not only refuted Gore’s defense of the movie's contents, but also listed a total of 35 errors in the award-winning abomination responsible for most of the global warming hysteria sweeping the planet (emphasis added):

On Friday night, CNN viewers were treated to the special "Keeping Them Honest: The Truth About Global Warming," which took time to examine nine "alleged inconsistencies or exaggerations" in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," as enumerated in a ruling by a British judge. Host Miles O'Brien also interviewed a member of the IPCC, the group which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore, in the form of a scientist who has challenged Gore's views on global warming. O'Brien, who a week earlier had tagged dissenters with such labels as "dead-enders" and "a very small fringe," on this show suggested that people who are "skeptical" about global warming are "in the dark," and presented what he called "surprising" polling data showing a substantial number of Americans have doubts about global warming theory. (Transcript follows)

On Thursday, for the first time in American history, a state denied an electricity producer a construction license for a coal-fired power plant due to manmade global warming fears. As ominously reported by the New York Times Saturday (emphasis added):

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Thursday turned down a permit for twin 700-megawatt coal-fired generators that a group of electric cooperatives is seeking to build near Holcomb in southwest Kansas. The ownership and the electricity would be shared by 67 cooperatives in Kansas and neighboring states.

The department's staff had recommended issuing the air quality permits, but Roderick L. Bremby, the secretary of the department, said in a statement, "I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing."

As the Washington Post reported Friday, this decision has disturbing national implications (emphasis added):

Here's an inconvenient truth our global warming obsessed media seem certain to withhold from the public: biofuels produce more greenhouse gases than oil and gasoline.

Fortunately, as has been noted by NewsBusters before, foreign press outlets are more willing than ours to present the facets of this issue that go counter to the prevailing climate change agenda.

As such, Britain's Times reported Saturday (emphasis added throughout, h/t's Don Surber and Glenn Reynolds):

In the lead-up to Monday night’s YouTube debate with the Democrat presidential candidates, CNN ran prime-time specials previewing videos that might be featured during the debate, and most of those featured came from the liberal side. It should be no surprise then that video clips featured left-wing clips by almost a 3 to 1 margin versus the conservative clips - 17 liberal clips to 6 conservative clips, out of a total of 38 video question clips.

Video of 10 of the liberal questions (6:20): Real (4.53 MB) or Windows (3.79 MB), plus MP3 audio (2.15 MB).

Sweltering heat is sweeping the nation, ushering in fears that the “slammed” power grid won’t be able to meet the demands of consumers desperate to keep cool.

But as much as journalists are now focused on that threat, they have largely ignored nationwide power issues while rabid environmentalists have battled nuclear and coal power plants.

CNN’s Jim Acosta explained on “American Morning” that energy analysts are very concerned if new power plants are not built:

“[T]he next crisis is looming unless the nation starts building new power plants within five to seven years. Energy analysts fear the return of the blackout of ’03,” said Acosta on July 9.

Here’s an inconvenient truth the media aren’t likely to share with citizens as they continue to spread global warming alarmism: schemes currently being debated to reduce CO2 emissions likely will destroy the airline industry while diminishing new job creation.

So suggested a Seattle Times article Wednesday (h/t Chris Horner, emphasis added):

European airlines claimed say the European Union' plan for a mandatory greenhouse-gas cap and trading system would cripple the industry with extra costs of $5.4 billion a year.

Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair joined major carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa in saying the plan would diminish mobility, hurt the overall economy and cut off remote areas from tourist traffic, citing a report that the airlines commissioned from global accounting group Ernst & Young and air transport consultants York Aviation.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? However, the news is even worse according to an Associated Press article also published Wednesday (h/t Benny Peiser, emphasis added):

David Fenton and his public relations firm are “left-leaning,” according to the May 31 Washington Post. But the glowing 1,856-word profile of Fenton revealed more than just a left-leaning tilt.

In the story “Putting the Progressive in PR” by Linton Weeks, the Post depicted Fenton, now head of Fenton Communications, as an entrepreneurial Mahatma Gandhi figure – furthering causes deemed pure and wholesome by the Post, from the protection of swordfish to abolishing the death penalty.

Kimberley Strassel's OpinionJournal.com column about coal-mine operator Robert E. Murray of Murray Energy is important on a number of levels.

You haven't heard of Robert E. Murray? That's not surprising.

If there were an open dialog instead of continual blather about "settled science" when it comes to supposedly human-induced "climate change" and "global warming" (two concepts I like to collectively refer to as "globaloney"), Murray would have visibility. But, as Strassel writes, a different "climate," the political one, appears to be keeping him largely out of the public eye, despite his best efforts to break through.

You see, Robert Murray is a coal-company executive who has first-hand experience with what will happen on a much broader scale if the radical changes envisioned by Al Gore and others (whom I like to refer to as "globalarmists") ever get enacted:

There was a summit between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the European Union on Friday that yielded as little results as it did attention from America’s media.

One of the issues on the table was whether Russia is going to provide more energy resources to EU nations starved for such.

Didn’t hear about this?

Well, that’s not surprising, for in the midst of the media’s ongoing attempts to create global warming hysteria while pushing the U.S. to participate in the Kyoto Protocol, our press have little interest in reporting how energy politics across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are threatening economies around the globe.

Contrary to most American media that ignored this dicey subject, the BBC covered the following Associated Press article Friday (emphasis added):

Would you expect a former writer for the Village Voice and The Nation to be harshly critical of soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not-so merry manmade global warming alarmists?

Neither would I.

Yet there it was in the leftwing newsletter CounterPunch, written by editor Alexander Cockburn.

*****Critical Update: Cockburn's article published by The Nation.

Entitled “Hot Air, Cold Cash; Who are the Merchants of Fear?,” the piece absolutely eviscerated all those advancing the theory of anthropogenic global warming for what Cockburn believed to be financial and political gain (emphasis added throughout):

The mainstream media’s promotion of climate change hype continues unfettered. A segment on Thursday’s "The Situation Room" wholeheartedly embraced the theory of human-caused global warming, and the International Panel on Climate Change’s recent "action plan" to do something about it.</