GORE WATCH. Looks like Al's well on his way to netting the all-important Arianna endorsement. She checked out his new film and left the theater rather impressed. "Whether Al Gore ends up running in 2008 or not," she writes, "he is modeling the way our public figures, and especially our would-be presidents, should be operating -- from the heart and true to themselves. Standing for something more important than just winning, and more powerful than the fear of losing." The movie's also engendering something of a backlash, at least among those with vested interests in the current energy production scheme: FOX is trotting out professional global warming denier Patrick Michaels to counter Gore's flick. Michaels was on his show, said Sean Hannity, to deliver "the real scientific truth." I'm sure he was (for more on Michaels, go here). And the CEI, a frontgroup for The American Petroleum Industry, is running pro-carbon dioxide ads. CO2, of course, is the compound which, in excess, creates global warming. But it's also a naturally occurring gas that each of us emit when we breathe out. And that's the point of the ads, which end with the rousing line: "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life."
--Ezra Klein
