Barbara Walters Promotes Al Gore's 'Compelling, Horrifying' Vision of Global Warming

Barbara Walters, fresh from firing Star Jones off The View, took the ABC talk show back to what it does best, promoting liberal issues. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper appeared on the June 29 edition of the show. At the start of the program, The View's announcer previewed the paranoid, frightened tone that the segment would take:

"Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are telling you about an inconvenient truth that could destroy the entire planet."

Barbara Walters, at 11:17AM EDT, described Mr. and Mrs. Gore this way:

"Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper have been forces of nature in the fight to save the planet. And there is a wonderful movie you all have to see called An Inconvenient Truth. And in it, the Vice President, the former Vice President, lays out a compelling, horrifying, but ultimately hopeful case for finding a way to save an Earth that's on the brink of disaster. And that means saving our lives and our children's lives."

The East Coast has seen a series of strong storms over the past few days. Ms. Walters wondered if, you guessed it, global warming could be the culprit. She asked, "Is all of this rain that we’ve had, is that tied to global warming? Is that what we’re feeling?" While not saying yes, Gore gave a strong indication that he thought this was possible:

"The scientists will say it's difficult to say any particular weather event can– has a single cause. But they have predicted for years that global warming will be accompanied by larger downpours, because warmer air holds more moisture, and in this case the warmer oceans are feeding more moisture off the Atlantic into the northeast. And so, more of it falls at one time."

This apparently wasn’t definitive enough for Walters. She questioned him again, "So maybe it is?"

Just in case the audience wasn’t completely clear on where the ABC journalist stood on the issue of global warming, Walters briefly turned into film critic Roger Ebert and gave the movie her version of "thumbs up."

"We’ve known each other for a long time and it’s just such a pleasure to have both of you on with us together. And we want to tell people, again, we don’t endorse a lot of things. We talk about a lot of movies, but it’s rare that we say to people, it’s very important to see this."

Elisabeth Hasselback, the show’s token conservative, gingerly attempted to disrupt the love fest with a few pointed questions. She asked Gore what kind of car he drives and mentioned that some scientists deem his theories alarmist. The former Vice President responded by saying, "You know, there are scientists who say that I've sort of given too rosy a view. There are those who have a much darker view." A few seconds later he used the phrase "planetary emergency." Later, he called global warming a "crisis." Walters described the problem as "horrifying" and stated that the planet is "on the brink of disaster." Well, it’s a good thing we have Gore to give us the "rosy" version.

And of course, what Al Gore interview would be complete without the requisite media groveling about a 2008 presidential run? Co-host Joy Behar told the former Vice President that although she "loves Hillary," she would vote for Gore again. Barbara Walters cooed to the ex-VP and his wife, "Do you want to run? Do you want him to run?" Finally, the veteran ABC journalist closed the segment by informing the entire audience that they would all be getting a copy of An Inconvenient Truth, the book. Star Jones may be gone, but promoting liberal causes will always have a home at The View.