White House Curbs Gore Enthusiasm
EmailABC News’ Ann Compton Reports: In its first reaction to news of the American win of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, White House spokesman Tony Fratto couldn’t bring himself to say the word "congratulations" but his statement on Al Gore did praise the thousands of scientists who review data for the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body jointly awarded the Nobel prize with the former vice president.
"Of course [Bush is] happy for Vice President Gore and happy for the international panel on climate change scientists who also shared the peace prize," Fratto said, "Obviously, it’s an important recognition and we’re sure the vice president is thrilled.
Fratto continued: "Obviously, Vice President Gore has helped bring attention to climate change. The IPCC scientists have done remarkable work to bring scientific rigor to the questions surrounding climate change."
Deputy Press Secretary Fratto then played spoiler, adding that the most difficult step will be doing something about global warming.
Fratto outlined the "next step" as "implementing climate change strategies that are effective and practical and that allow for continued economic development and for countries to do the work they need to do to lift people out of poverty. And that’s a challenging task."
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Gore will run as Vice-President. It will be Clinton/Gore 2008. I know it sounds outrageous, but it’s the best move for both of them. Gore blunts Nader for Clinton and he gets to run in 2016…
Posted by: Patrick Stephens | October 12, 2007, 11:29 am 11:29 am
What on earth does global warming have to do with Peace?….or as Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus says:
“The relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct,”
“It rather seems that Gore’s doubting of basic cornerstones of the current civilization does not contribute to peace.”
“…environmentalists’ efforts to halt global warming fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity.”
Of course, one has to be wary of an institute which awarded a “peace prize” to the bloodthirsty Father of Modern Terrorism, Yasser Arafat–and yet failed to ever recognize Mohandas Gandhi, who led hundreds of millions of his people to independence from a colonial power without firing a shot.
Posted by: carl | October 12, 2007, 12:54 pm 12:54 pm
Small-scale wars (primarily tribal, to date) are already breaking out in Africa over access to diminished water and grazing land lost to rapidly accelerating desertification, carl. Refugee crises are also being eyed as sources for future conflicts.
Posted by: esb | October 12, 2007, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
The problems of desertification and diminished water and grazing land in Africa started decades ago and are the result of corrupt governments (Mugabe!), greedy landowners, crappy land management, overgrazing, wasteful/ short-sided development, and gross mismanagement/ paternalism from UN agencies. The wars started as soon as the European colonial powers left–after drawing African national boundaries with no regard for ethnic and tribal concerns—and are fanned by selfish foreign intervention by countries like China, Russia, and France.
Posted by: carl | October 12, 2007, 3:24 pm 3:24 pm
It is astonishing to me the man who stole the Presidency from the man who won the Presidency does not even have the decency to congratulate him as a Nobel Laureate. It only reconfirms that President George W. Bush is a man of such limited capacity that he has not even minimal social grace. This is as apparent as his inadequacies with Queen Elizabeth. He is certainly no Al Gore who was so gracious and noble when he accepted the outrageious decision of the Supreme Court. Kudos to Al Gore–the man who should have been President.
Posted by: SFT | October 12, 2007, 8:54 pm 8:54 pm
Bush’s lack of social graces just proves he was “raised in a barn” as the old saying goes.
Posted by: Erie67 | October 14, 2007, 11:46 am 11:46 am