AN INCONVENIENT FRAUD

by Michael Reagan

This whole thing with global warming and its leading apostle Al Gore is just more of the political left’s habit of talking the talk but never walking the walk.

Gore has proven time and again to be a complete hypocrite. He preaches the need to eliminate man-made pollution. On his Web site advising people to fight global warming by discovering what their so-called carbon footprint is, he says, “You may be surprised by how much CO2 you are emitting each year,” and advises that you should “calculate your personal impact and learn how you can take action to reduce or even eliminate your emissions of carbon dioxide.”

Mr. Gore, however, does not practice what he preaches. He wants you to curb your lifestyle drastically, but on the record he’s doing everything he doesn’t want you to do, and doing it extravagantly.

Consider his house in Tennessee. According to The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, Nashville Electric Services records obtained by the Center show the Gores in 2006 averaged a monthly electricity bill of $1,359 for using 18,414 kilowatt-hours, and $1,461 per month for using 16,200 kilowatt-hours in 2005.

Over the past two years, the gas and electric bills for his 20-room mansion and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

Nashville Gas Company billed the family during the same period an average of $536 a month for the main house and $544 for the pool house in 2006, and $640 for the main house and $525 for the pool house in 2005. That averages out to be $29,268 in gas and electric bills for the Gores in 2006, $31,512 in 2005.

"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says Drew Johnson, the Center's 27-year-old president. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."

Compare this with President Bush’s practices as a homeowner.

According to a story in the April 29, 2001, Chicago Tribune, “Bush loves ecology -- at home,” the President’s house is a model of ecological purity.

“The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude, wrote freelance reporter Rob Sullivan. “Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this ‘eco-friendly’ dwelling use about 25 percent of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

“A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.”

Gore talks the talk, the President walks the walk.

Gore and his leftist buddies pat themselves on the back and tell us what they think we ought to be doing, but they are not going to follow the rules they lay down for us.

Al Gore excuses his own excesses by saying he is buying "carbon credits," to offset his massive use of electric power and jet planes.

Buying "carbon credits" allows him to pollute to his heart’s content, because he’s adopted a "carbon neutral" life whereby any emissions for which he is personally responsible are allegedly offset by buying “green credits” such as parcels of forests that eat up CO2.

He doesn’t do solar, he doesn’t use wind power, he doesn’t change his lifestyle or go bio-diesel, he doesn’t do any of the things he insists the rest of us must do to save the planet from being barbecued -- he just buys carbon credits and goes on his merry way spewing pollution in all directions.

This is so outrageously asinine on its face; it alone should awaken the American people to the fact that they are being had by Mr. Gore and his fellow global warming fanatics. Instead of getting an Oscar Sunday night, he should have been laughed off the stage.

Mr. Reagan is a syndicated radio talk-show host, author of "Twice Adopted" (Broadman & Holman Publishers) and "The City on a Hill,"and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

THE CONSERVATIVE VOID

By Robert Novak

WASHINGTON -- New York-based political consultant Kieran Mahoney's statewide survey of probable Republican participants in the 2008 Iowa presidential caucuses shows this support for the "big three" GOP candidates: John McCain, 20.5 percent; Rudy Giuliani, 16.3 percent; Mitt Romney, 3.5 percent. Astonishingly, they all trail James Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, with 31 percent.

How could that be? Because it was not a legitimate survey, but a "push poll." That normally is a clandestine effort to rig a poll by telling respondents negative things about various candidates. Mahoney makes no secret that his voter sample was told of liberal deviations by McCain, Giuliani and Romney, and of true-blue conservatism by Gilmore (Mahoney's client).

Mahoney is trying to prove a point widely accepted in Republican ranks. None of the three front-line candidates is a natural fit for the nation's right-of-center party. Without question, there is a conservative void. The question is whether Gilmore or any new candidate can fill it.

The most commonly mentioned void filler is not Gilmore but Newt Gingrich. A straw poll by the right-wing Citizens United organization of its political contributors showed Gingrich leading with 31 percent (followed by Giuliani at 25 percent, Romney at 10 percent and McCain at 8 percent). But based on his record as speaker of the House, Gingrich's conservative record is far from flawless.

Mahoney did not include Gingrich in his Iowa poll of Republicans likely to vote in next year's caucuses. It first showed McCain leading with 33 percent, followed by Giuliani with 31.5 percent and Romney with 8.8 percent (and the unknown Gilmore at 1.3 percent). This is a voter sample that described itself as 70 percent conservative and 68 percent pro-life, and gave an astounding 76 percent favorable rating for President George W. Bush.

The polltakers next "pushed" -- alleging information about each candidate that could alienate conservative voters. McCain: opposed tax cuts, favored "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, opposed a ban on same-sex marriages. Romney: "refused to ban" abortion in Massachusetts, committed to "full equality" for gays and lesbians, put health care in the hands of bureaucrats. Giuliani: supported Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo's re-election in New York, is pro-gay rights and pro-choice, supports gun control.

That additional information dropped Giuliani by 9 percentage points to 22.3 percent and Romney by 5 points to 3.8 percent, while McCain rose 2 points to 35.3 percent. The unknown Gilmore was constant at 1.3 percent.

Then the pushers projected Gilmore as a tax-cutting, jobs-creating governor of Virginia, head of a congressionally appointed commission of terrorism, chairman of the Republican National Committee and National Rifle Association member opposing gun control. With that buildup, Gilmore finished first, well ahead of the field.

That suggests at least the theoretical success of a campaign to knock down the conservative credentials of the big three candidates and build up Gilmore's. "I have the best track record of any of the candidates," Gilmore told me, adding that McCain and Giuliani are "not conservative" while Romney was a "liberal governor of Massachusetts."

With Gilmore a latecomer to the presidential fund-raising game, it is doubtful he could find sufficient funds to tear down his opponents and build up himself nationally or even in the state of Iowa. But he will have plenty of help.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) attracting right-wingers nationwide to Washington this weekend, Citizens United will distribute a 23-page attack on McCain. "He's no Ronald Reagan," it begins, and concludes: "John McCain is not a conservative." (McCain is the only announced Republican presidential hopeful not scheduled to speak at CPAC.) Simultaneously, McCain operatives are putting out material that depicts Giuliani riding into City Hall on the shoulders of the New York Liberal Party as a throwback to the old Tammany Hall Democratic machine.

It is hardly too late for such negative campaigning to tear down Republican front-runners because of inadequate conservative credentials. At this point in the 2000 election cycle, Bush was far in front with 45 percent in the polls, with Elizabeth Dole second at 29 percent, and McCain at a mere 3 percent, behind Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes, before making his run that nearly won the nomination. The GOP lineup for 2008 may still be open, considering the conservative void.

TERRORIST APPEASERS TRY AGAIN

Democrats aren't giving up yet on their anti-war proposals...now they have a new one over in the House. The latest piece of legislation would not cut off funding for the troops, but would require the president to acknowledge the military is overburdened. Huh? These people don't know when to quit, do they? How about passing a resolution banning anymore resolutions about the war? One thing's for sure, if Osama really is alive and living in Pakistan...he must be pleased with his Democratic supporters.

What is the point of all this? There isn't one. When it comes to war, the power of the House of Representatives is clear: they hold the purse strings. Again...if the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill really believes that the war in Iraq is a mistake, then cut off the funding. Otherwise, sit down and shut up. While they're doing everything they can to undermine the commander-in-chief, this country is trying to win the war on terrorism.

It sure makes you wonder just whose side some of these liberals are on.

JOHN MCCAIN'S BASE

John McCain's base

By Michelle Malkin

The Maaaverick is not going to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins tomorrow.

But he did have time to tape his announcement on the David Letterman Show. Video at Hot Air.

Interesting priorities.

***

Ed Morrissey weighs in on McCain's absence from CPAC:

McCain has argued that he has the most solid conservative record of all the major contenders, and with some cause. Yet it is hardly a secret that the Senator has a rocky relationship with conservatives in the Republican Party. After the McCain-Feingold assault on political speech, his work with Ted Kennedy on immigration, the Gang of 14 rebellion that allowed the Democrats to filibuster judicial nominees for appellate assignments for the first time in American history, and a generally hostile attitude until just recently towards social conservatives, McCain has more work than most to convince conservatives to support him.

That's why his absence makes little sense. If he wants to win conservatives, he needs to make an effort to meet them -- literally. CPAC provides a golden opportunity to do so. It's one of the oldest conservative forums in existence, and it gathers opinionmakers on the Right from across the country. If he can't be bothered to go out of his way to face conservatives there, where exactly does he plan on addressing them?

Not on the David Letterman show, that's for sure...