Pity poor Al Gore. The former presidential candidate has a trophy room Tiger Woods would envy. He’s got the Nobel Peace Prize, an Emmy, even an Oscar. But much like his failed presidential campaign, Gore can’t win the big game.
Gore’s big game is climate change. He’s been trying to force America to embrace his apocalyptic vision for years and Americans still don’t agree. His failure is almost stunning – like Woods losing at miniature golf.
He’s been completely set up for an easy victory: The mainstream media long ago fully embraced everything he says about global warming. They rarely even give anyone a chance to present a different view.
By Gore’s own calculation, people who oppose his global warming consensus “are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view.” He told “60 Minutes” March 30 that those who dare to challenge him are “almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona, and those who believe the Earth is flat.”
There are so few of them that Gore is committing $300 million to convince them he is right.
That’s right. Gore is such a pathetic pitchman that even with the entire global news media on his side; he still has to pay $300 million to buy ads to further hector Americans about our lifestyles.
The new campaign is called The We Campaign. Three hundred million dollars. The ad agency that brought us the Geico Gecko and the Caveman. And all they come up with is a campaign that sounds like an old “Bugs Bunny” cartoon complete with a “We” flag.
I am proud to raise the “They” flag. Because I dare ask questions, those pesky things journalists are supposed to handle. Who is funding Gore’s $300-million campaign? Lesley Stahl let Gore emphasize how much he is helping underwrite the ads. “Well, Tipper and I – thank you again – have put all of the profits from the movie and the book that we would have otherwise gotten, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ to this,” Gore said.
But according to The Washington Post, he’s committed “more than $2.7 million.” Let’s assume a new Gore book and a few proceeds from the Live Earth fiasco add another few million.
So where does roughly $290 million come from? Are there donors, like Gore, somehow involved in carbon credits, alternative energy or some standard left-wing cause? We don’t know because journalists are so blinded by their devotion to Gore that they don’t dare challenge him with questions a high school journalism student would ask.
Journalists usually love to investigate funding. They point out the funding for conservative groups all the time. Last summer, a left-wing front group called The Union of Concerned Scientists complained that groups opposed to Gore received funding. NBC’s Anne Thompson told viewers “interest groups fueled by powerful companies” had funded “denier groups.”
When opponents of the Gorean global view gathered in New York, The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin said the sponsoring Heartland Institute was “funded by energy and health-care corporations.”
Following the conference, ABC’s Dan Harris did a hit piece on Dr. Fred Singer, whom he called part of the “denial machine.” Harris claimed Singer was trying to create a “mirage of a scientific debate” in the face of “broad scientific understanding.” The report went on. “Kert Davies, an environmental activist says Singer is connected to a whole web of organizations, many funded by oil and coal companies, that have spent millions trying to convince the public there's a real scientific debate about global warming,” explained Harris.
So “millions” on that side are an issue, but nearly $300 million for “We” is not.
Journalists simply ignore hypocrisy when it serves their purposes. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Gore will target his $300 million bullying campaign “through American pop culture, from ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Biggest Loser’ on through ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The 700 Club.’”
The cost of just one global warming bill in Congress is in the trillions of dollars. There’s no question where that kind of funding comes from – my wallet and yours. Imagine what a Gore consensus could do to the U.S. economy. Let’s just hope Gore continues his track record and remains “The Biggest Loser.”
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and vice president of the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute. He can be seen Thursday afternoon each week on Fox Business Network.
