No, Really, the Sky Is Falling

Try as he might, Mr. Texas Two-Step cannot upstage Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes.

For nearly two terms in office, George W. Bush's approval rating has sunk. During the same period, Al Gore's popularity has gone through the roof.

Bush's oil-based foreign policy has gotten more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in an unnecessary war. Bush told Americans to shop, not sacrifice.

Gore advocates less consumption and less energy dependence to save the planet and lives. He accepted the Oscar when his film, "An Inconvenient Truth,'' won best documentary. Gore embraces science; Bush shuns it.

You can imagine how elated Bush was on hearing that his Democratic nemesis and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In December, the ex-veep and the panel of scientists will share the prize for bringing greater awareness to the perils of climate change.

To the administration, this must've seemed like a cruel joke, just as it treats the Kyoto accord. Speaking of bad jokes, remember Papa Bush's crack about "Ozone Man''? Gore was green when being green wasn't cool.

"Of course he's happy for Vice President Gore and happy for the international panel on climate change scientists,'' White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters about Bush II's response to Gore's success.

Believe that and you probably also believe WMDs got us into Iraq, Newt Gingrich is a serial monogamist, Tom Tancredo wants open borders and the child of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was immaculately conceived.

Of course the Bushvolk are hacked that Gore, he of MoveOn fame, has stuck it to them again. Recall that part of Gore's premise is that industrial nations, especially those led by morons who allow polluters to profit without oversight and regulation, are largely responsible for the planet's destruction.

Gore's storyline is that one of the weapons of mass destruction is sitting in the White House pretending that the sky is not falling and if so, it isn't anybody's fault.

What do melting polar ice caps and alternative fuels have do with world peace? People faced with scarcity migrate, which leads to overpopulation.

Overdependence on petroleum has environmental and foreign-policy implications. Oil is why the administration won't leave Iraq and incites Iran.

Author Kevin Phillips put things in historical context in "American Dynasty,'' published in 2004. "By 1975, oil was becoming a critical factor to the CIA, where George H.W. Bush took over. … Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had made it clear that the United States would go to war to prevent any strangulation of U.S. and world oil supplies, a pledge later reinstated by the White House in the so-called Carter Doctrine of 1979. By this point America had come to depend on the Middle East for about one-quarter of its oil.''

Thankfully, Phillips also did the math. "By 1980, the United States produced under 20 percent of world petroleum output and had to import 30 percent of its needs. By 2000, the U.S. share of production had shrunk further and 50 percent of U.S. consumption had to be imported. … Within months of George W. Bush's 2001 inauguration, Cheney's energy task force predicted that domestic oil production would decline 12 percent by 2020, compelling the United States to import fully two-thirds of its oil.''

Clearly, Bush-Cheney's reckless politics trumped realpolitik, and their lies about war for oil begat lies about environmental impact.

Wrote Phillips: "Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, had already participated in drafting a 2000 report for the Project for a New American Century that called for taking over Iraq -- this well before 9/11 -- as part of a larger oil-minded Pax Americana. Thus emerged the early inklings of the military strategy needed to implement the later energy task-force findings.''

When will we ever learn? Can the planet be saved?

This looks like a job for Ozone Man.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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