On Wednesday an inconvenient truth was the #11 movie in the country despite being in only 4 theaters, earning $78,994 ($19,749/theater). The #10 movie was showing at 1,265 theaters, earning 117,000, or $92/theater.
Paul Krugman says that substantially reducing greenhouse-gas emissions would do little more than shave a few fractions of a point off our GDP growth, and Matt Yglesias approves.
Krugman also says that Gore's re-emergence is a test of our character ($). "Are we -- by which I mean both the public and the press -- ready for political leaders who don't pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies?"
Eric Boehlert says the national media, at least, is most definitely not ready, and seems geared up to pull the same crap on Gore they pulled on him in 2000.
MediaMatters fact checks Easterbrook's ass. That's gonna leave a mark.
Right-wing legacy hire Jonah Goldberg writes a hit piece on Gore, making much of the fact that he may have been off by a year or two about where he spent his childhood summer vacations. ThinkProgress responds: "This is a HUGE issue."
ThinkProgress also offers a more extensive rebuttal to the moronic Tech Central Station column that the righty blogs are treating as holy writ. They are nothing if not eager to believe anything that confirms their biases.
The Rude Pundit takes a break from ranting and waxes rhapsodic about Gore's appearance at NYC's Town Hall. Arthur Smith offers an extensive summary of the appearance. Gore said:
There's lots about politics I don't like these days, in our sound-bite political culture. It works against the politics of ideas. It's a toxic process. I don't think my skills are well suited to this political climate. I want to do my best to make it possible for whoever is elected this year and in 2008 to start changing the picture.
Gore is like a figure in a Greek tragedy. He is allowed to see an extraordinary danger on the horizon, but his fatal flaw -- an inability to convincingly fake the jocular, everyman charisma that is the coin of the realm in American politics -- prevents him from averting it.
Just saying.
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Reactions to Al Gore’s book o’ solutions, “Our Choice”
The must-read solutions book by Al Gore
Comments
View as Flat
caniscandida Posted 7:12 pm
26 May 2006
Jonah Goldberg's quibble about where Al Gore may or may not have spent a particular summer in his mid-teens is truly silly and sorry. It is interesting, though, that Gore has recently let it be known that he studied in France and learned French pretty well. John Kerry, by contrast, thought he had to suppress his having gone to school in Europe (Switzerland), and his knowing French very well.
Arthur Smith's piece is very helpful, and encouraging. (And I am grateful for his saying something briefly by way of explaining the term "carbon tax," which I would have been no better at understanding initially as the poor editor from Wired.) Even he, though, thinks Gore might have said more by way of recommending a clearer course of action for us to follow, one which promises to be effective.
A comment after Smith's article said that if Gore does not run in 2008, and if another Democrat wins, then it would be a very good thing if that new president appoints Gore as Energy Czar. And in connexion with Who Will Run and Who Will Win in 2008, it is interesting that Chelsea Clinton was present at the Town Hall event. Whether she can operate as her mother's ambassador, who knows.
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bookerly Posted 12:15 am
30 May 2006
Someone I know who admires Gore, saw the movie and said he is riding in an SUV in it? Is this true? Won't it be likely to be jumped all over by those (who dare not be named) who despise him?
Tell me it ain't so (or has been editted out)>
patrick
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