"Al Gore scares the bejesus out of me" and George Allen is an Idiot. [View All]

In Focus
Gore and Guggenheim: Speaking 'Truth' to Power

By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 2, 2006; Page WE43

Al Gore scares the bejesus out of me.
Okay, not him personally. During a meeting in his Washington office to discuss the documentary based on his traveling slide show on global warming, Gore comes across as more relaxed, genial and funny than he ever did when he was in public office. But his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" (see review on Page 44), is rattling stuff indeed.

So I decide to see if I, in return, can shake up this prophet of doom and gloom whose PowerPoint demonstration, despite its not infrequent touches of levity, may leave many with the impression that the world is coming to an end. I begin by reading aloud from an e-mail sent out by the office of Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), who sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in response to a letter from a concerned constituent (and film critic pal of mine), urging her senator to support "green" legislation.

"Thank you for contacting me regarding greenhouse emissions," Allen's message begins. "I appreciate your concerns and value your input on this important matter. Although the human contribution seems minimal, I'm glad . . . "

"Oh God," interrupts Gore, cutting the performance short with a weary sigh at yet another example of what he likes to call the "global warming deniers" -- people who may have come around to the acceptance of global warming as real, but who still cling to what he calls the "manifestly untrue" explanation that it's all, or mostly, the result of natural causes.

-snip-
As far as Sen. Allen is concerned, Gore has this to say. "I think that, at some point, people like him who say these things that are manifestly absurd, when you actually look into them, will be confronted by their constituents, by their friends, by their family, by their ministers, by people they respect, who say to them in a quiet moment, 'By the way, you should know that what you're putting in this e-mail to your constituents is idiotic, and more and more people who read this may think you're an idiot.' "

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