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On the July 22 edition of Fox News Hannity s America, host Sean Hannity again criticized the purchase of credits to offset one s "carbon footprint" as a "sham," adding: "You know what it s like? It s like saying to your husband or spouse, I m going to cheat, but I ll buy you a diamond ring. That s what it s saying." As Media Matters for America documented, Hannity has previously derided carbon offsets as a "sham," a "crock," and a "ridiculous concept," and has repeatedly criticized former Vice President Al Gore s reported use of them. However, Hannity has yet to address the pledge by News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch "to be carbon neutral, across all our businesses" -- which includes Fox News -- "by 2010." Murdoch specifically mentioned that his plan calls for reducing net carbon emissions to zero "through a combination of operational changes and carbon offsets." On May 9, News Corp. announced that all of its "business units will become carbon neutral by 2010 -- through energy efficiency, buying renewable power and offsetting otherwise unavoidable emissions. Becoming carbon neutral is only the beginning of the company s permanent commitment to change the way it uses energy and to reach its audiences on this issue." In a May 9 speech, Murdoch went into greater detail regarding News Corp. s plan to use carbon credits to offset "unavoidable" emissions: MURDOCH: While we reduce our own carbon footprint we will encourage the companies who truck our DVDs and newspapers, sell us paper, and provide an enormous range of products and services -- to all contribute. Today, we are joining the Climate Group, a coalition of businesses and governments working together to solve the climate problem. But some emissions will be unavoidable. As a last resort, we will offset these emissions. A carbon offset is a financial tool to support projects that prevent carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Done right, they will widen the implementation of carbon-saving technologies, and give an incentive to create new solutions. We have entered into an agreement to begin purchasing carbon offsets this year, from projects that provide wind power in India. When our net emissions reach zero -- through a combination of operational changes and carbon offsets -- we will be carbon neutral. As Media Matters previously noted, Hannity has not addressed this announcement. Rather, he has continued to call the purchase of carbon offsets a "fraud" and a "joke." Additionally, on the July 9 edition of Fox News Hannity Hannity s America: HANNITY: Will you -- because if I ever get Al Gore, I ll put him in the hot seat, and I ll ask him, "Will you promise never to get in a private jet again?" ARIANNA HUFFINGTON (Huffington Post co-founder): What -- I ll tell you what he would reply. He would reply -- HANNITY: No. What would you reply? HUFFINGTON: Well, I would reply the same thing, that if you are chartering a jet, or if it s your jet going somewhere, then you actually have to buy carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are great. HANNITY: Carbon offsets are a sham. HUFFINGTON: They re not. HANNITY: You know what it s like? It s like saying to your husband or spouse, "I m going to cheat, but I ll buy you a diamond ring." That s what it s saying. HUFFINGTON: No, come on. Not at all, because it s doing something that actually helps the environment.

During a discussion on the July 15 edition of CNN s Reliable Sources of the news that Sen. David Vitter s (R-LA) phone number was among those in the records of alleged "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, host Howard Kurtz failed to challenge Townhall.com managing editor Mary Katherine Ham s claim that former Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) "uses 300 times" the amount of energy that "the rest of us use." While Ham did not indicate the source of her claim, she was apparently exaggerating unsubstantiated assertions made by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) about Gore s home energy bills, including a claim that his home energy usage was "more than 20 times the national average." After contrasting Vitter s alleged use of an escort service with his political emphasis on promoting "morality," guest Arianna Huffington, founder and editor of Huffingtonpost.com, asserted that a politician s personal life would be "fair game" if it contradicted issues that he or she had made "the cornerstone of who you are as a political leader." Ham replied: "Well, in that case, we re free to go after the environmentalists who -- like Al Gore, who uses 300 times what the rest of us use." As Media Matters for America has previously noted, TCPR claimed to have reviewed Gore s home energy bills and found that "[i]n 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh -- more than 20 times the national average. ... As a result of his energy consumption, Gore s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359." But in making their unsubstantiated claims, TCPR omitted some or all of the steps that Gore has reportedly taken to reduce the effect of his home energy usage, and that these steps apparently increased the cost of Gore s energy bills, which were also reported by CNN financial correspondent Ali Velshi and in a February 27 article in The Tennessean of Nashville. On the February 27 edition of CNN s American Morning, Velshi reported that in response to TCPR s claims, "Gore produced bills that showed he purchased 108 blocks of green power for each of the past 3 months," which cost "about 432 bucks a month extra ... to use solar or other energy sources coming into his house." Velshi reported that "[o]ne group says that s about the equivalent of recycling 2.5 million aluminum cans, or more than a quarter million pounds of newspapers." The Tennessean article also reported: "Gore purchased 108 blocks of green power for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills. That s a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources." The weblog Think Progress also reported that Gore s office said "Gore s family ... sign[ed] up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch" and "purchas[ed] carbon offsets to offset the family s carbon footprint." Also, a February 27 Associated Press article questioned TCPR s assertion that the Gores used more than 220,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006. The AP reported that "according to bills [it] reviewed," "[t]he Gores used about 191,000 kilowatt hours in 2006," while TCPR "said that Gore used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours." The AP reported that TCPR president Jason "Drew" Johnson "said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service. But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never received a request from the policy center and never gave it any information." In addition, the Gores reportedly purchase carbon offsets to allow them to lead "carbon neutral" lives. The Tennessean reported that involved with such "carbon emissions offset[s]" is "figuring out how much carbon is emitted from home power use, and vehicle and plane travel, then paying for projects that will offset that with use of renewable energy, such as solar power." The article further noted that the Gores drive a hybrid SUV and "Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe." According to a Wired magazine profile of Generation Investment Management, "Gore says he and Tipper regularly calculate their home and business energy use -- including the carbon cost of his prodigious global travel. Then he purchases offsets equal to the amount of carbon emissions they generate." From Wired: The Gores and all the employees of Generation lead a "carbon-neutral" lifestyle, reducing their energy consumption when possible and purchasing so-called offsets available on newly emerging carbon markets. Gore says he and Tipper regularly calculate their home and business energy use - including the carbon cost of his prodigious global travel. Then he purchases offsets equal to the amount of carbon emissions they generate. Last year, for example, Gore and Tipper atoned for their estimated 1 million miles in global air travel by giving money to an Indian solar electric company and a Bulgarian hydroelectric project. From the July 15 edition of CNN s Reliable Sources: KURTZ: So if you talk about morality and you don t live up to those high standards, you re fair game. But if you don t talk about morality -- HUFFINGTON: You re not fair game. KURTZ: -- you can do whatever you want? Really? HUFFINGTON: That s what I think. I mean, yes, it s between you and your partner. It s not about your constituents. It s not about the press. HAM: It s a bit convenient that if you don t happen to subscribe to any particular morals in that area, that you can just run around and do whatever you want to. You still have to answer to the voters. And I think Democrats should be held to a standard as well. HUFFINGTON: It s not whether you subscribe to it. It s whether you make it the cornerstone of who you are as a political leader. HAM: Well, in that case, we re free to go after the environmentalists who -- like Al Gore, who uses 300 times what the rest of us use -- [crosstalk] KURTZ: Let s keep the focus on personal conduct. And since Larry Flynt, who publishes a magazine filled with naked women, is leading this crusade again, does the press roll over for Flynt in portraying him as a First Amendment champion? HAM: Well, you know, Larry Flynt is sort of a sideshow. I mean, he -- he s obviously going to go after Republicans for the reason that Arianna mentioned. And I believe he was on Cavuto on Fox a month ago, and Cavuto asked him specifically, "Will you go after Democrats?" He was like, well, well, uh, uh -- he should mention them if he s going to go after Vitter to this extent, I think. HUFFINGTON: Remember what is interesting here is it was Larry Flynt again who came up with Bob Livingston s extramarital problems which led to Livingston resigning and David Vitter being elected to his seat -- KURTZ: This is back in 1999. HUFFINGTON: Yes, back in 1999. And then I happened to see Larry Flynt after that. And you know what is interesting? That there was more to be revealed about Bob Livingston, which he did not go on to reveal because he had left public life and he felt therefore it didn t have to -- he didn t have to go there.

On the July 9 edition of Fox News Hannity s "carbon footprint" as a "joke" and a "fraud." Guest Chris Horner, senior fellow for the energy industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), joined Hannity in bashing carbon offsets, likening the system to a priest who buys "adultery offsets." This is only the latest example of Hannity attacking carbon offsets and, in particular, former Vice President Al Gore s reported use of them. However, Hannity has yet to address News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch s pledge to take steps -- including the use of carbon offsets -- "to be carbon neutral, across all our businesses" -- which includes Fox News -- "by 2010." On May 9, News Corp. announced that all of its "business units will become carbon neutral by 2010 -- through energy efficiency, buying renewable power and offsetting otherwise unavoidable emissions. Becoming carbon neutral is only the beginning of the company s permanent commitment to change the way it uses energy and to reach its audiences on this issue." Furthermore, in a May 9 speech, Murdoch went into greater detail regarding News Corp. s plan to use carbon credits to offset "unavoidable" emissions: MURDOCH: While we reduce our own carbon footprint we will encourage the companies who truck our DVDs and newspapers, sell us paper, and provide an enormous range of products and services -- to all contribute. Today, we are joining the Climate Group, a coalition of businesses and governments working together to solve the climate problem. But some emissions will be unavoidable. As a last resort, we will offset these emissions. A carbon offset is a financial tool to support projects that prevent carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Done right, they will widen the implementation of carbon-saving technologies, and give an incentive to create new solutions. We have entered into an agreement to begin purchasing carbon offsets this year, from projects that provide wind power in India. When our net emissions reach zero -- through a combination of operational changes and carbon offsets -- we will be carbon neutral. But as Media Matters for America recently noted, Hannity has yet to address these claims. During the July 9 segment, Global Warming Action Alliance president John Cleveland noted that the Live Earth organizers "paid for carbon offset credits," to which Hannity responded, "What a joke." He later told Horner: "Let s talk about the carbon offset fraud." Horner replied:" OK, real quickly. Sean, you have a priest. If your priest tells you ... that adultery is a mortal sin and then holds a big orgy at his house and tells everybody about it, but then says, You still need to take me seriously about adultery, because I bought adultery offsets. Would you keep going back to that church?" He added: "That s what the high church of environmentalism is about. ... It s like the infidelity never occurred." Hannity has previously derided carbon offsets as a "sham," a "crock," and a "ridiculous concept" and has repeatedly criticized Gore s reported use of them: Discussing "lies" about global warming on the April 29 edition of Fox News Hannity s America, Hannity claimed that "carbon credits are a sham" and asserted: "Big environmental lie No. 2: It s OK if Learjet liberals fly around in private jets, because they buy carbon offsets." During the April 5 Hannity t people like Gore give up the jets and stop spending 20 times the amount of electricity? In response, co-host Alan Colmes asserted: "You actually are purchasing something to offset what the pollution you re putting into the environment. ... Hey, you can laugh it all you want. ... [Y]ou want to make it about Al Gore." Hannity responded: "I think this is the most asinine, ridiculous thing I ve ever heard." During the March 25 edition of Hannity s America, while discussing Gore s March 21 testimony on global warming before the House and Senate environment committees, Hannity asked Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, to "[e]xplain this ridiculous concept that liberals are trying to throw on us about carbon offsets that they can buy sort of like indulgences." Johnson replied: "With carbon offsets, you are essentially saying you are allowing rich liberals ... to pay for a little kid somewhere in a third world country to plant a tree on your behalf to help clean up the environment. You are essentially saying, I don t care enough about the environment to take steps in my own life, so I m going to spend my money to encourage some little kid somewhere in a third world country and ask him to do something." Hannity added: "I won t stop polluting the planet, I ll just, you know, plant a tree and then my conscience is free." On the March 19 Hannity s EcoTalk host Betsy Rosenberg noted that Gore was reportedly using carbon offsets, Hannity stated: "Carbon offsets is a crock, and you know it." He later claimed: "If you re Al Gore and a liberal, you can be a hypocrite." From the July 9 edition of Fox News Hannity ve chronicled it. He travels around in private jets. We ve gone through a whole experience, and I ll give you the dates and times that we now have chronicled he s been on private jets. So that s a fact. CLEVELAND: And how much of that has he done on commercial airlines? HANNITY: Can I finish? He uses 20 times the amount of electricity than the average citizen of Tennessee. For this concert, how many of these guys traveled how many miles around the world and put a big carbon imprint? Is that a problem for you? CLEVELAND: The thing that you re not telling people is that the organizers of this organization paid for carbon offset credits. Al Gore s home is -- HANNITY: What a joke. CLEVELAND: -- 100 percent green, 100 percent green. HANNITY: Chris Horner, this is a carbon offset company that he owns and he makes profit on. Let s talk about the carbon offset fraud. HORNER: OK, real quickly. Sean, you have a priest. If your priest tells you every Sunday, as he probably does, that adultery is a mortal sin and then holds a big orgy at his house and tells everybody about it, but then says, "You still need to take me seriously about adultery, because I bought adultery offsets." Would you keep going back to that church? That s what the high church of environmentalism is about. Remember, they just said, as long as -- obviously, the wealthy, you buy offsets. It s 100 percent green. It s like the infidelity never occurred.

On the July 6 edition of his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck hosted James Taylor, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, who claimed that "virtually every significant assertion that [former Vice President] Al Gore makes in that movie [An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006)] has been refuted by sound science." Taylor went on to assert that there is an overall thickening of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. In fact, in its 2007 Working Group I report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that "the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are very likely shrinking," and that "[t]hickening of high-altitude, cold regions of Greenland and East Antarctica, perhaps from increased snowfall, has been more than offset by thinning in coastal regions of Greenland and West Antarctica." Indeed, in the report s Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC asserted that recent data show "that losses from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have very likely contributed to sea level rise over 1993 to 2003." During the program, Taylor purported to rebut assertions that "Antarctica is melting" by claiming, "[T]he truth is that Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and has been cooling for decades. Indeed, the Antarctic ice sheet is accumulating mass as opposed to losing mass." Beck responded that he had "read" that Antarctica "is actually accumulating ice on the interior. It s actually losing ice around the shelves, but they still don t know why." Taylor then claimed that "the vast majority of the continent, East Antarctica, is getting colder, and the ice sheet is accumulating there." Taylor s claim that "Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and has been cooling for decades" greatly oversimplifies Antarctica s temperature variation. In a May 16 article, New Scientist reported that "[i]t is clear that the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out from the mainland of Antarctica towards South America, has warmed significantly," but it also noted that a 2002 study found the continent s interior had cooled between 1966 and 2000. However, the article went on to report that the cooling of the continent s interior actually seems to be due to the strengthening of circular winds -- caused by a hole in the ozone layer: [The stronger circular winds] prevent warmer air [from] reaching its interior. The increased wind speeds seem to be a result of cooling in the upper atmosphere, caused by the hole in the ozone layer above the pole, which is of course the result of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) pollution. Confusingly, it appears that one human impact on the climate -- the Antarctic ozone hole -- is currently compensating for another, global warming. If the ozone layer recovers over the decades as expected, the circular winds could weaken, resulting in rapid warming. In its 2007 report, the IPCC similarly asserted that "where the ozone hole has played a role, it has resulted in cooling over 1971 to 2000 for parts of the interior of Antarctica but large warming in the Antarctic Peninsula region and Patagonia." The 2007 IPCC report also contradicts Taylor s claim that "the Antarctic ice sheet is accumulating mass as opposed to losing mass." The report stated: "For East Antarctica, growth of 20 21 Gt [Gigaton] yr-1 was indicated, with estimated losses of 44 13 Gt yr-1 from West Antarctica. The balance of the Antarctic Peninsula was not assessed," meaning that although East Antarctica ice mass may fluctuate anywhere from losing a billion tons to gaining 41 gigatons of ice per year, it is estimated that West Antarctica will lose anywhere from 31 to 57 gigatons of ice. In fact, despite Taylor s suggestion that ice thickening in East Antarctica could outweigh the effects of ice loss in the West Antarctic ice sheets, the report went on to note: "Combining the East and West Antarctic numbers yielded a loss of 24 25 Gt yr-1 for the region monitored." Taylor similarly suggested that ice loss on the edges of the Greenland ice sheet is being offset by increases in the interior mass. He stated: "[T]he interior is accumulating snow mass rather significantly, and merely the edges, most particularly along the southwest edge of the continent, are the receding glaciers. And that s where, of course, we see the stories in the major media." In fact, the IPCC wrote: "Greenland has experienced mass loss recently in response to increases in near-coastal melting and in ice flow velocity more than offsetting increases in snowfall." The report later added: "Many recent studies have addressed Greenland mass balance. They yield a broad picture (Figure 4.17) of inland thickening (Thomas et al., 2001; Johannessen et al., 2005; Thomas et al., 2006; Zwally et al., 2006), faster near-coastal thinning primarily in the south along fast-moving outlet glaciers (Abdalati et al., 2001; Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006), and a recent acceleration in overall shrinkage." From the July 6 edition of CNN Headline News Glenn Beck: BECK: James Taylor is a senior fellow for the environmental policy at Heartland Institute. James, I got to put this one right out at the very beginning. You are almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, are you not? TAYLOR: Well, that s what the global warming alarmists of the world would like you to believe. Actually, at the Heartland Institute, we receive less than 5 percent of our budget from energy producers, and we receive more than 95 percent of our budget from energy consumers. So, certainly -- BECK: Right. TAYLOR: -- if we re going to skew the science, I think the energy companies better beware, but fortunately, we don t sell out for money. BECK: OK. And you know, I have to ask that question, and I think it s a fair question. I think it s also fair to ask the people who are pushing the global warming agenda how much they receive from places like the Sierra Club, but that s a different story. The movie came out 2005, An Inconvenient Truth. How much of that movie now is under question? TAYLOR: Well, virtually every significant assertion that Al Gore makes in that movie has been refuted by sound science. BECK: Give me -- give me -- give me an example. TAYLOR: Sure. Al Gore mentions Antarctica as being a canary in the coal mine for global warming and shows us pictures of ice calving off the ice sheet, and it leads people to believe that all of Antarctica is melting. Unfortunately for Al Gore and global warming alarmists, the truth is that Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and has been cooling for decades. Indeed, the Antarctic ice sheet is accumulating mass as opposed to losing mass. So, if there is anything that can be said about, say, for example, the musicians in Antarctica this weekend for Live Earth, they re more likely to show us a picture of a Sasquatch driving an SUV around the South Pole than they are likely to show us a picture of actual global warming occurring in Antarctica. BECK: The Antarctica thing -- cause I read about this just a couple of months ago -- that it is actually accumulating ice on the interior. It s actually losing ice around the shelves, but they still don t know why. They think it s the winds that are blowing across those ice shelves right at the corner, right? And that was -- wasn t that in an Ohio study? TAYLOR: Well, Antarctica, a small portion of the continent, western Antarctica, is getting a little bit warmer. However, the vast majority of the continent, East Antarctica, is getting colder, and the ice sheet is accumulating there. Al Gore in his movie, of course, points out the West Antarctic Peninsula and doesn t let us know that this is a cherry-picked, small portion of the continent. In Greenland, for example, as you mentioned, the interior is accumulating snow mass rather significantly and merely the edges, most particularly along the southwest edge of the continent, are the receding glaciers. And that s what, of course, we see the stories in the major media about. BECK: All right, James. Now go back and call Halliburton and tell them you ve done well.

In a May 10 online article, London-based magazine Environment Finance reported that News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch will take steps "to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from his media empire" -- which includes Fox News Channel -- "to zero by 2010." According to the article, "News Corp will adopt energy efficiency measures and buy renewable energy to cut emissions as much as possible, then offset the rest using carbon credits. The firm will start buying credits from a wind farm project in India this year." However, in addition to attacks by Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and John Gibson, FoxNews.com posts have directly attacked the purchasing of carbon credits to offset one s "carbon footprint" and have mocked former Vice President Al Gore s reported use of them. On March 25, following Gore s appearance on Capitol Hill to testify on the effects of global warming, Fox News business correspondent Terry Keenan wrote: "Get ready to hear a lot about carbon-neutral living in the days and months ahead. It s the new euphemism for Escalade-driving environmentalists who purchase carbon credits to assuage any guilt about their private jets and 20,000 square foot summer homes." Keenan later added: "How do these carbon offsets actually work? Well, like a charm if you re in the business of buying your way out of looking like a hypocrite." He concluded: "Yet Gore and the other greenies seem to be sleeping well at night, content that all of this paper shuffling allows them to live in carbon neutral bliss. What power these little credits possess -- conferring upon their owners the right to consume carbon with abandon, while enjoying the moral high ground to lecture to the rest of us to cut back on energy." Additionally, in a May 11, 2006, post to his "Junk Science" column on FoxNews.com, Steven Milloy, adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, asserted that "[t]he goal of becoming carbon neutral " is to "alleviate your guilt," adding: "The more entrepreneurial of these web sites [those that calculate your carbon footprint] then try to capitalize (literally) on any feelings of guilt you may have by offering to relieve your conscience (and wallet) through the purchase of so-called carbon offsets. " He concluded: "Your carbon footprint? Carbon offset-buyer beware. It s a gimmick designed to part you from your money without providing any measurable environmental benefit." Hannity has been critical of Gore s advocacy of environmental measures to reduce global warming, in particular, attacking Gore s reported use of carbon offsets. Examples of his criticism include: Discussing "lies" about global warming on the April 29 edition of Fox News Hannity s America, Hannity claimed that "carbon credits are a sham" and asserted: "Big environmental lie No. 2: It s OK if Learjet liberals fly around in private jets, because they buy carbon offsets." During the March 25 edition of Hannity s America, while discussing Gore s March 21 testimony on global warming before the House and Senate environment committees, Hannity asked Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), to "[e]xplain this ridiculous concept that liberals are trying to throw on us about carbon offsets that they can buy sort of like indulgences." Johnson replied: "With carbon offsets, you are essentially saying you are allowing rich liberals ... to pay for a little kid somewhere in a third world country to plant a tree on your behalf to help clean up the environment. You are essentially saying, I don t care enough about the environment to take steps in my own life, so I m going to spend my money to encourage some little kid somewhere in a third world country and ask him to do something." Hannity added: "I won t stop polluting the planet, I ll just, you know, plant a tree and then my conscience is free." On the March 19 edition of Fox News Hannity s EcoTalk host Betsy Rosenberg noted that Gore was reportedly using carbon offsets to minimize his ecological footprint, Hannity stated: "Carbon offsets is a crock, and you know it." He later claimed: "If you re Al Gore and a liberal, you can be a hypocrite." During the February 27 edition of Fox News The Big Story, Gibson claimed that, "instead of cutting back on his energy, he s using his greenbacks to buy energy credits." He later asked: "Is Al Gore an environmental fraud?" Like Hannity, Gibson hosted TCPR s Johnson, who said of Gore s environmental measures: "As far as the vouchers and the carbon credits and things like that, it seems like it s a way for him to buy his way out of his own guilt, perhaps." He added: "[I]t s hypocrisy, plain and simple." In a February 27 article, The Tennessean reported that a Gore spokesperson said the former vice president has limited his carbon footprint in the following ways: Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills. [...] The Green Power Switch program isn t all that Gore and his wife, Tipper, are doing, [Gore spokeswoman Kalee] Krider said. They use compact fluorescent light bulbs and are in the midst of a renovation project that includes having solar panels installed on their home to reduce fossil fuel consumption, she said. Their car? A Lexis hybrid SUV. "They, of course, also do the carbon emissions offset," she said. That means figuring out how much carbon is emitted from home power use, and vehicle and plane travel, then paying for projects that will offset that with use of renewable energy, such as solar power. Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said. According to its website, "Environmental Finance is a monthly magazine covering the ever-increasing impact of environmental issues on the lending, insurance, investment and trading decisions affecting industry." From the April 29 edition of Fox News Hannity s America: HANNITY: Big environmental lie No. 2: It s OK if Learjet liberals fly around in private jets, because they buy carbon offsets. Now, for every bad deed, like driving in a car or flying in an airplane, companies are now selling these carbon offsets to minimize the impact of our so-called carbon footprints on the environment. Now you can learn all about this on the website for Al Gore s movie, on which you can calculate just how bad you are for the environment. The problem is, is that there is no standard for these companies to follow. As the left-wing magazine The Nation has reported, just about anything qualifies as an offset. In the case of TerraPass, a carbon offset supplier to the rich, famous, and jet-set crowds, Business Week has that they are paying an Arkansas company, called Waste Management, for environmental practices that were already in place before TerraPass came along. Just this week, an investigation by the Financial Times revealed that some carbon offset companies are guilty of selling worthless credits, providing credits of almost no value, and paying industrial companies for energy efficiency gains for which they have already benefited. In short, carbon credits are a sham -- and, keep in mind, the people who buy these offsets are the same people who refuse to allow wind farms off Cape Cod because they aren t pretty. Environmentalism is great, but just not in their backyard. From the March 25 edition of Hannity s America: HANNITY: So, all right, we ve got the private jet use; we ve got 20 times the use of electricity than the average American uses in just one of his three homes; we ve got the zinc mine. And then I want to go to -- his answer every time -- and I applaud Senator Inhofe for asking him about this -- he always says, "Well, no, my family buys carbon offsets." But in fact, as you point out here, he helped found this group Generation Investment Management. So, he s not really buying carbon offsets from anything other than his own company -- in other words, sort of investing in his own company, isn t he? JOHNSON: Exactly. And as I understand it, the offsets that he purchases are actually benefits from this company. So, he is not purchasing any offsets through his own pocket. HANNITY: All right, explain what this is for the average American that has no idea, you know, if polluting the planet -- if we had a planetary emergency like this, you would think he would just lower his pollution rate. JOHNSON: Right. HANNITY: Explain this ridiculous concept that liberals are trying to throw on us about carbon offsets that they can buy sort of like indulgences. JOHNSON: With carbon offsets, you are essentially saying you are allowing rich liberals to go buy -- to pay for a little kid somewhere in a third world country to plant a tree on your behalf to help clean up the environment. You re essentially saying, "I don t care enough about the environment to take steps in my own life, so I m going to spend my money to encourage some little kid somewhere in a third would country and ask him to do something." HANNITY: "I won t stop polluting the planet, I ll just, you know, plant a tree and then my conscience is free." JOHNSON: Right. It s a way to buy off your guilt. From the March 19 edition of Hannity s record, it s -- you know about this story. It s been out there everywhere but the establishment press for about 15 years. Why did The Tennessean, clearly an establishment outlet, choose to publish it now? Because his hypocrisy is redefining hypocrisy. It s not anything about the mine; it s the hypocrisy, stupid. And don t say, "you guys" -- HANNITY: Well, Betsy, let me -- HANNITY: Hang on a second. Betsy, let me stay on this point. Let me stay on this point. If you go to look at his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, they have signs up there recommending, you know, when possible, use mass transit. Use light rail. If you can, walk or ride your bicycle. ROSENBERG: Do you do that? Do you do that? HANNITY: Hang on a second. Now we discover Mr. -- HORNER: He s not the Arch Druid. HANNITY: -- Mr., you know, he advises us to walk. He travels around the world in private jets himself. ROSENBERG: And he s doing carbon offsets 100 percent -- carbon offsets. HANNITY: Carbon offsets is a crock, and you know it. He uses 22 times the amount -- ROSENBERG: It s a start. It s a start. [...] ROSENBERG: It doesn t matter. It s all a smokescreen. HANNITY: Oh, it doesn t matter. ROSENBERG: You re avoiding the truth. What about the -- HORNER: It doesn t matter. ROSENBERG: -- truth about climate change scares you so much? HORNER: It doesn t matter. ROSENBERG: No -- HANNITY: It doesn t matter. ROSENBERG: -- because it s the past, and we need to look forward -- HANNITY: If you re Al Gore and a liberal, you can be a hypocrite. ROSENBERG: -- and we all need to look at our own ecological footprints -- HORNER: He s not an average American, remember? ROSENBERG: -- including Al Gore, including Al Gore. HANNITY: Yeah, OK. But, it -- so should he give up flying in private jets? HORNER: He s not an average American. Betsy just said so. HANNITY: Should he give up -- I mean, should he -- ROSENBERG: Have we all -- HANNITY: -- cut back on his electrical uses? ROSENBERG: Who among has not looked at their own eco-footprint? He should. Absolutely. And in the meantime, he s doing carbon offsets. We all should. We all need to. HANNITY: In the meantime, he s a hypocrite, Chris Horner. From the February 27 edition of Fox News The Big Story with John Gibson: GIBSON: In the meantime, it s the big outrage: Why don t you practice what you preach? That s my big question to Al Gore. The former presidential candidate and environmentalist keeps pushing and pushing for everybody to jump on his green bandwagon, but in his global warming crusade, he doesn t actually play by his own rules. GORE [video clip]: It is not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go, but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference. GIBSON: Well, what is Al Gore doing personally to make a difference? Well, it turns out he talks a lot. Gore s Tennessee mansion has now been reported to use more electricity every month than the average American household does in an entire year. Al Gore s got plenty of cash, but instead of cutting back on his energy, he s using his greenbacks to buy energy credits. He can afford to be green if green means spending green. Is Al Gore an environmental fraud? With me now: Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the group that put together this new report on Gore s energy consumption. So, Drew, what is it that Gore s massive house down there in Nashville actually uses? JOHNSON: Well, the average American uses about 11,000 kilowatt hours per year. Gore s mansion here in Nashville, which is one of three or four homes he has, used 221,000 kilowatt hours last year. So, we re talking 20 times what you and I use at home. GIBSON: He, of course, says that he s doing everything he can to bring down the energy used in that house, to be totally green about it, and he buys energy credits. But what does all that mean? JOHNSON: Well, when it comes down to it, when you re using 20 times more electricity than the average American, it s hard to justify your role, first of all, as a leader in this environmental movement. But second of all, that you re acting -- you know, you re walking the walk. Obviously, he s big on talking the talk, and he s just not getting it done at his own home. As far as the vouchers and the carbon credits and things like that, it seems like it s a way for him to buy his way out of his own guilt, perhaps. Here, we ve got a man who flies around the world on private jets and then has $30,000 a year electric bills, and he is telling you and I what kind of light bulb to have in our bathrooms. It s -- it s, you know -- it s hypocrisy, plain and simple. GIBSON: Well, I guess you re going to answer my question for me, Drew. Let me put it on the screen. Al Gore, Energy Guzzler: Mr. Green is trying -- he says he is -- or OMG [Oh my God]! What a hypocrite! You think he s a hypocrite here.

On the May 2 edition of his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck aired an hour-long "special report" titled "Exposed: The Climate of Fear." According to an April 30 CNN press release, the special s purpose was to "deflate what Beck perceives as the media hype surrounding global warming" and "question[] the accuracy of former Vice President Al Gore s claims in the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth of 20-foot sea level rises and the disastrous effects of increased carbon dioxide levels." In addition to the release promoting Beck s special, on three separate occasions, various CNN and Headline News programs hosted Beck to discuss or promote his "special report," without highlighting or challenging his false or misleading assertions on the global warming issue, his attacks on Gore, or his claims of the hype surrounding the issue in his "special report." For example: During an interview with Beck on the May 3 edition of American Morning, co-host Kiran Chetry echoed some of his past false claims on global warming, stating that while there is "no denying" global warming is happening, "I think the cause and how we can help is something that is up for debate." Chetry also did not challenge Beck s false attack -- frequently made by other conservatives as well -- that in An Inconvenient Truth, Gore greatly exaggerated worst-case projections of sea level increases.Previewing the special on the May 2 edition of CNN Newsroom, Beck told host Don Lemon that he is doing the special because "the scientific consensus in Europe in the 1920s and 30s was that eugenics was a good idea," adding: "I m glad that a few people stood against eugenics." Those comments recall remarks Beck made on the April 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, in which he likened Gore s fight against global warming to Adolf Hitler s use of eugenics as justification for exterminating 6 million European Jews. On that program, Beck stated: "Al Gore s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government."During a discussion of the special on the May 2 edition of CNN Headline News Nancy Grace, guest host Pat Lalama did not challenge Beck s suggestion that humans may not be the primary cause of global warming. Beck also reiterated his attack on Gore, again comparing the global warming issue to what "people did in the 1920s and 30s with eugenics." Continuing to attack Gore, Beck claimed that "you could put Al Gore into a priest collar, because [the global warming issue] is now the church. It has gone from science to dogma." Beck also said that Gore "is the high priest. You cannot question him." Media Matters for America noted that Beck s "Exposed: The Climate of Fear" relied heavily on people with energy industry ties and others espousing positions on global warming that have been soundly debunked or rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists studying climate change. From the May 2 edition of CNN Headline News Nancy Grace: LALAMA: Hey, another noted professor came out yesterday in one of the big papers and said, "You know, yes, we should all be responsible, but that, in seven years, there will be another cooling trend." I go to the UCLA movie store to, you know, pick up some movies, and I said to the kid, "What do you recommend?" He goes, "An Inconvenient Truth." and when I said, "No," he goes, "Oh, you must drive an SUV." I mean, it s like, "Oh, my gosh, I need combat pay to work out here in L.A." Why are people buying it willy- nilly? BECK: I think it s really strange. I think you could put Al Gore into a priest collar, because it is now the church. It has gone from science to dogma. LALAMA: Right. BECK: It is -- and I got into trouble saying this earlier today on my radio program, but it s the way I feel: It is the same kind of thing that people did in the 1920s and 30s with eugenics. You take some scientists, and then you silence all of the dissenting voices, and then you make it into a propaganda film, and you keep feeding it to people, through all of your media, and then you introduce it in, not just science class, but art class and English class. And before you know it, there is no dissent on it. LALAMA: But, you know, are you getting in at all to the psychology of it? I mean, are we -- is it sort of a liberal self-loathing? And, of course, I m not accusing all liberals of being self-loathing. But it seems that we have to hate ourselves so much for being human, we Americans, that here s another thing to, like, self-flagellate over, like, "Oh, you know, we re ruining our Earth." BECK: You know, Pat? I think it s partly that, but I also think that it s a good sign with America. It s yet another sign of our compassion. Nobody wants to hurt the Earth. Everybody wants green -- you know, good, clean water, and good, clean air, and a green Earth. And so we say to ourselves, "You know, I know we can do better in gas mileage. You know, I don t want to throw garbage out. I don t want to throw garbage in the sky." And so what we do is we say, "Well, you know, I feel a little guilty, and maybe we are causing this, so I ll just do what I have to do." LALAMA: Well, I m with you, and I m so glad you re doing this. And I ll make sure my whole family watches. And I might call their teachers, too. [...] GORE [video clip]: Isn t there a disagreement among scientists about whether the problem is real or not? Actually, not really. LALAMA: I m Pat Lalama in for Nancy Grace. Now more with Headline Prime s Glenn Beck. So, Glenn, is global warming real? It may be, right? BECK: You know, here s my personal stance on global warming. It s clear that the globe is warming. It s up .7 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years. However, we ve gone from global warming to global cooling to global warming. It seems to be a 30-year trend. Maybe this is -- you know, maybe we re going to go into an extreme warming period or an extreme cooling period. That is what happens. The real question is: Are we causing it? And can we stop it? The Kyoto Treaty, we are going to spend billions and billions of dollars, and we re not going to stop global warming. They say, if it s fully implemented, and everything, every piece of science is accurate, it will delay global warming another three years in the next 100 years. That doesn t seem like a smart investment. LALAMA: Right. Hey, what do you make of carbon offsets? Is that bogus? It s kind of the new catch phrase? "I m changing my light bulbs." BECK: You know, Pat, what really kills me is there are so many similarities to the Dark Ages and the church. I swear to you, first of all, Al Gore is the high priest. You cannot question him. You cannot question the facts. LALAMA: I know. BECK: They are saying that any scientist that disagrees with it is a heretic. He s crazy. LALAMA: Right. BECK: And, by the way, you can come to me and buy a special dispensation. You can buy forgiveness. LALAMA: Hey, I have to wear a bulletproof vest in this town, so you know what it s like, and we ll be watching. BECK: Oh, I know. LALAMA: OK, Glenn. BECK: Thanks a lot.

On the May 3 edition of CNN s American Morning, during a discussion about CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck s May 2 hour-long special, "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," co-host Kiran Chetry stated that there is "no denying" global warming is happening, but added, "I think the cause and how we can help is something that is up for debate." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share the consensus view that, as stated in a June 2006 NAS report, "[H]uman activities are responsible for much of the [planet s] recent warming." In February, the IPCC released its fourth assessment report, which found: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-produced] greenhouse gas concentrations. This is an advance since the TAR s [Third Assessment Report] conclusion that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations". Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns. [The report defines "very likely" as a greater than 90 percent probability of occurrence.] Later in the interview, Beck repeated a false attack frequently made by conservatives that in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), former Vice President Al Gore greatly exaggerated worst-case projections of sea level increases. Beck told Chetry, "It is important to have ... a reasonable conversation on this without the, you know, shock waves of 20 feet of sea level rise." As Media Matters noted, this characterization of Gore as an alarmist is based on the false claim that the IPCC s assessment of a likely rise of 23 inches contradicts Gore s claim. But the IPCC projection involved rising sea levels as they are affected before 2100 due to "[c]ontinued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates" -- not the melting or breakup of the West Antarctic ice shelf or the Greenland ice dome at an indeterminate point in the future, which is what Gore was discussing in the film. Beck s appearance on CNN was his second in two days to discuss his special. As Media Matters noted, Beck appeared on the May 2 edition of CNN Newsroom and told host Don Lemon that he is doing the special because "the scientific consensus in Europe in the 1920s and 30s was that eugenics was a good idea," adding: "I m glad that a few people stood against eugenics." Chetry ended the interview by announcing, "I guess I just made a programming decision that we re going to run [Beck s special] again at some point." From the May 3 edition of CNN s American Morning: CHETRY: A recent poll showed about 60 percent of Americans think that global warming has started, and -- BECK: Yeah. CHETRY: -- there s a very small amount who think it s never going to happen. Is the debate about the -- I mean, we have gone up, point -- what is it? -- .7 degrees? BECK: Yeah, about .7 degrees Celsius. Look, there is no -- CHETRY: So there is no denying it s happened. But I think the cause and how we can help is something that is up for debate. BECK: Yeah. There are three -- there are three questions -- really, kind of four. There s -- has the globe gotten warmer? Yes, it has. That s undeniable. Is this a lasting effect or is this just a cycle? That s still up for debate. The next one is: Is man causing it? And the fourth one is: If man is causing it and the other three are true, then are we able to stop it? Even there, some scientists say it s already too late. There s a lot of debate. CHETRY: Right. But we re pretty smart people, and if we can figure out ways to not destroy our planet, shouldn t we at least try? BECK: Oh, of course we should. Nobody -- I mean -- I want clean air. I want water. I mean, I think this is -- it s obscene to say that people who are on the other side of the debate don t want a clean planet. I have children, and I think about -- I think about all of the issues that we re facing today as a generational issue. I mean, I don t want to leave our planet in a worse shape for our children. It s not about us. As we get older and have children, it becomes less and less about us and more and more about our children. We should do the right thing. But when you can -- CHETRY: What are people going to get when they watch your special? BECK: Well, the special was last night. I hope they just got a look at the other side, enough to where they say, "Wait a minute. Let s use reason here. Let s not silence dissent." It is important to have a conversation and important to have a reasonable conversation on this without the, you know, shock waves of 20 feet of sea level rise. CHETRY: And I guess I just made a programming decision that we re going to run it again at some point. BECK: Oh, good. Go for it. CHETRY: Glenn Beck, always great to talk to you. Thanks a lot. BECK: Great to talk to you. Bye-bye.

On the May 2 edition of CNN Newsroom, while previewing his May 2 special, "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck told host Don Lemon that he is doing the special because "the scientific consensus in Europe in the 1920s and 30s was that eugenics was a good idea," adding: "I m glad that a few people stood against eugenics." Those comments recall remarks Beck made on the April 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, in which he likened former Vice President Al Gore s fight against global warming to Adolf Hitler s use of eugenics as justification for exterminating 6 million European Jews. On that program, Beck stated: "Al Gore s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government." Beck continued: "You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler s plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore s enemy, the U.N. s enemy: global warming." He added: "Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, That s not right. And you must silence all dissenting voices. That s what Hitler did." Later in the interview, Beck addressed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called Beck "CNN s chief corporate fascism advocate." In response, Beck said: "[P]eople who question global warming, they re called Nazis. They re put right up next to Holocaust deniers." However, Lemon did not note Beck s own invocation of Hitler to describe Gore s global warming campaign. In addition to his April 30 comments, as Media Matters for America noted, on the March 22 edition of Glenn Beck, Beck likened Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels for Gore s statement, during his testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, that he would initiate a "mass persuasion campaign" to urge Congress to act on climate change. Further, on the June 7, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Beck compared Gore s documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), to Nazi propaganda. Beck dismissed many of the conclusions drawn from the documentary, stating, "[W]hen you take a little bit of truth and then you mix it with untruth, or your theory, that s where you get people to believe. ... It s like Hitler. Hitler said a little bit of truth, and then he mixed in and it s the Jews fault. That s where things get a little troublesome, and that s exactly what s happening" in An Inconvenient Truth. From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the May 2 edition of CNN Newsroom: LEMON: Glenn Beck -- boy, are you asking for it. He joins me now from New York. Listen, I got to start right out. If the scientific consensus says, Glenn, that global warming is a reality and we need to move past the debate into action, why even do this hour-long special? Why are you asking for it? BECK: There s a couple of reasons: First of all, the scientific consensus in Europe in the 1920s and 30s was that eugenics was a good idea. I m glad that a few people stood against eugenics. The global consensus is fractured in several different areas. Some people believe that global warming is happening. It s pretty easy to tell, you know, all you have to do is check the thermometer. Then there are those who say, yes, but man caused it; others say man didn t. Those who say either way, yes on that one, then you have to say, how do we solve it? And it is fractured all across, and we re talking trillions of dollars. I am doing this special mainly because it frightens me that we that live in a world where I m called by RFK Jr. a fascist, and when The Washington Post asked him, "Why did you call Glenn Beck a fascist?" he said because I heard him question global warming a couple of weeks ago. LEMON: But Glenn, do you think that that is a general consensus, that one person said it, not everyone is saying or calling you a fascist in all of this. BECK: No, no, no. You could -- has RFK Jr. called you a fascist? There are people that call global warming deniers -- that s an interesting quote, because I don t even deny global warming is happening -- but people who question global warming, they re called Nazis. They re put right up next to Holocaust deniers. LEMON: And then -- but there are people, Glenn, who are going to say you re not denying that global warming is happening. There is not one consensus about why it s happening -- some people say it s greenhouse gases and all the pollutants we re putting in the air -- but Glenn, wouldn t you agree that it takes people a lot to change? BECK: Sure. LEMON: Don t we have to scare people a little bit that maybe you shouldn t drive, you know, your SUV so much? Maybe you should take the train or take public transportation -- BECK: No, I think we should -- LEMON: -- or use a hairspray so much? Don t you think that we need to scare people a little bit so that we do get back on track with the earth? BECK: You know what? I got to tell you something: The world is a scary enough place with just the truth. I think we should start telling people the truth. You know, I m perfectly willing -- I watched the Al Gore movie, and I looked at it and I said, "You know what? If these things are true, then we do need to change. I ll drive a Prius gladly. I just want to know what the truth is. And that s all we re looking for. You know what? This is a bookend to the Al Gore movie. On the website at cnn.com, where it talks about the special, we ve provided the link to the Al Gore movie. You should watch both sides. When have we said, ever in America, ever in the world, that we should only have one side of an argument? We should listen to all of them. LEMON: So, you believe folks should watch that, but you re not saying it s necessarily they should take that as whole. They should look at the other side, correct? BECK: It s one side. LEMON: And just -- you know you mentioned the Al Gore movie. Did you hear about the removal of Bibles from this one hotel? BECK: I think this is the most appropriate thing -- LEMON: What do you think of that? They re putting Al Gore s book over the Bible? BECK: Science has become religion for some people, and it is amazing -- many politicians -- Al Gore is one of them, the U.N. is another -- we should just have them get out of the suits and put a collar on -- a priest s collar on -- because I think we are entering the Dark Ages where these new priests are saying, "Science cannot question -- no one can question what the current belief is today." LEMON: Yeah, and I think some people would say -- and I think there is a general consensus on this, that we ve gone too far when we think that science is bad, because science actually has made major influences and has helped diseases and cured all kinds of things. BECK: There s -- science is great. LEMON: Yeah. BECK: We just have to keep in perspective they re the butter is bad, butter is good people. LEMON: Yes. Sometimes, there s nothing wrong with preservatives, sometimes. It helps you keep the -- all right. Glenn Beck, always a pleasure to have you. BECK: Thank you, sir.

On the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck likened former Vice President Al Gore s fight against global warming to Adolf Hitler s use of eugenics as justification for exterminating 6 million European Jews. Beck stated: "Al Gore s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government." He continued: "You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler s plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore s enemy, the U.N. s enemy: global warming." Beck added: "Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, That s not right. And you must silence all dissenting voices. That s what Hitler did." Later in the broadcast, Beck plugged his upcoming CNN Headline News special criticizing those who urge action on global warming, titled "Exposed: Climate of Fear." Beck said of the program: "There is no balance to the special. I want you to know right up front. I am not saying that this is the end all truth. I am saying that this is the credible other side. ... It s what scientists used to hold up and say, This is what we do. It s what colleges and universities used to hold up and say, Diversity of thought. But it doesn t happen anymore. And before it s completely shut down, and before we re all sent to respect camps, make sure you watch it on Wednesday." Beck further claimed that Gore is using misinformation to mobilize support for action on global warming, stating: "[T]hey re telling us things in Al Gore s global warming special that are not true, that the seas will rise 20 feet. Even the U.N. says that s not true. So you got to have the fear, we re all going to die." In fact, as Media Matters for America documented, a report released in February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of the United Nations, supported an assertion regarding sea levels in Gore s book An Inconvenient Truth (Rodale Books, May 2006). In the book, Gore wrote that if the West Antarctic ice shelf "melted or slipped off its island mooring into the sea, it would raise sea levels worldwide by 20 feet." He added that "the West Antarctic ice shelf is virtually identical in size and mass to the Greenland ice dome, which also would raise sea levels worldwide by 20 feet if it melted or broke up and slipped into the sea" (Page 190). The IPCC noted that "[c]ontraction of the Greenland ice sheet is projected to continue to contribute to sea level rise after 2100" and that "[i]f a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m," which is equivalent to approximately 23 feet. From the April 30 edition of Premiere Radio Networks The Glenn Beck Program: BECK: I go on vacation for three days, and I decide to take my family away. And I m there at the beach, and we re reading. And I take -- my wife takes some magazines and stuff, and we take the books for the kids, and I take The Years of Extermination [HarperCollins, March 2007]. It s a new book. And I just -- cause it s, like, 800 billion pages thick. I m just not going to have the time to read it. And I m doing some research right now for some other thoughts that I have that are probably six months away from percolating. And I m reading this book trying to do some research. And what this book is, is how do you get people to kill people? How do you get -- not just Germany -- all of Europe to kill the Jews. To round them up and kill them. How do you do that? That s what this book is about. And it is a phenomenal -- it is scarier than Mein Kampf. I read Mein Kampf because -- that was my first foray into evil. And I read Mein Kampf, and I read it because I wanted to know -- did the Germans know? Now, here s a book that outsold the Bible in World War II. Did they know? They clearly did. Why this book, The Years of Extermination, is more frightening is the whole world knew. And when you see what was in the papers at the time -- I kept reading it going, "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I have read these things in some places about the Jews, in some places about what s coming in other places on global warming. I have seen these things happening right now." And I understand World War II much, much better because we re here again, gang. We are here again. And I read this one part on global warming about how they got -- what was the first thing they did to get people to exterminate the Jews. Now, I m not saying that anybody s going to -- you know Al Gore s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government. You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler s plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore s enemy, the U.N. s enemy: global warming. So, I read this paragraph -- and I must have read it, like, five times because I just kept going, "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh." And I think I m in a unique situation because I ve heard from so many people, you ve heard from so many people calling in and saying these things on the show. Here s how they did it. First thing they did was they found a group of scientists that believed in eugenics, which basically is, "Breed your way to better people! Eugenics! Get rid of the defects, get rid of the races that aren t so strong. Breed a master race." For as insane, as insidious, and as out-and-out evil as it sounds today, believe it or not, in the 1920s and 1930s, that was cutting-edge science. And they said, "That is the answer. We can breed a master race." That s were the master race comes from: science and scientists. It was called eugenics. So, Hitler took the master-race idea and eugenics -- an accepted, mainstream scientific belief -- and he got all the biggest scientists to come out and say, "This is it. This is the answer. It s the damn Jews. We get rid of the Jew bloodline, and we re fixed." Now, how did you convince all of Europe to do it? You needed to have fear. You needed to have the fear of starvation. You needed to have the fear of the whole place going to hell in a handbasket. Which -- do we have that fear now with global warming? I mean, they re telling us things in Al Gore s global warming special that are not true, that the seas will rise 20 feet. Even the U.N. says that s not true. So you got to have the fear, we re all going to die. Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists that say, "That s not right." And you must silence all dissenting voices. That s what Hitler did. That s what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on this global warming bandwagon -- all the way to RFK Junior, who has called me a fascist for doing it -- all the way over to the global warming special that happened over in London a couple of weeks ago that is fantastic. They are now trying to -- are they suing or have they moved up to the arrest part yet, Stu [executive producer and head writer Steve Burguiere]? Where they are trying to punish the people for putting another view point out there -- on global warming. Then, the last step was to bring it into the schools. But here s the part that I read over and over again -- they didn t bring eugenics into the science classes. They brought it into the science class, but then they also brought it into the math class. They brought it into the literature class. They brought it into the history class. They brought it into P.E. They brought it into every single class. "This dirty Jew is trying to overcharge these Germans. How much of a profit will the Jew make by swindling money out of the Germans?" That -- those were actual problems that were introduced in math class. What set the alarm bells off for me was, how many calls have I received in the last month from people saying, "My daughter was in art class. She s watching an Inconvenient Truth"? I just had a call last week, a guy says, "My son was in math, and he s watching Inconvenient Truth. What does An Inconvenient Truth have to do with math?" My daughter is getting it as well. If you don t get on this train, the train is going to pull out of the station, and it s going to be moving at such a high rate of speed, you will not even be able to see the train. It has been foretold forever that that good will not understand bad, and bad will not understand good. We are getting to a place where the average American is being fed so many lies at such a high rate of speed on so many different topics from immigration to our own government to even race relations to political correctness on Islamic extremism to global warming, that it is going to become an avalanche, and you re not going to be able to get way from it. On Wednesday, the special that could end all specials -- the global warming special. There is no balance to the special. I want you to know right up front. I am not saying that this is the end-all truth. I am saying this is the credible other side. This is the other side of the argument. You want to hear about global warming -- great. Go watch the Al Gore special. It s the one your kids are being forced to watch. On Wednesday, force your kids to watch the other side of the debate. It s what scientists used to hold up and say, "This is what we do." It s what colleges and universities used to hold up and say, "Diversity of thought." But it doesn t happen anymore. And before it s completely shut down, and before we re all sent to respect camps, make sure you watch it on Wednesday. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I got a really good line that we can use. It s almost like it s from the Inconvenient Truth. Your very existence may depend on it. Ah-ha. Is that good?

On the April 6 edition of CNN s The Situation Room, CNN correspondent Carol Costello reported on "coal miner-turned-CEO of Murray Energy Corporation" Robert Murray s views on global warming, including his opinion that former Vice President Al Gore is "the shaman of global goofiness and gloom and doom." Costello concluded the report on Murray by claiming, without evidence or rebuttal, "What he s really concerned about are people losing their jobs." But Costello did not report that several of Murray s own mines have reportedly been embroiled in controversy over labor rights and substandard safety conditions. During the segment, Murray told CNN that legislation requiring companies to cut back on emissions is "a human issue to me because I live among the people that wear the hard hats, and I saw what happened in 1990 with the Clean Air Act, and this will be much worse. ... [L]ives will be destroyed for little or no environmental benefit." But despite Murray s purported sympathy for miners, the Pittsburgh office of the National Labor Relations Board issued a formal complaint against Murray and an associate in 2001 because they "[t]hreatened Union officers and its employees with reprisals for publicizing the labor dispute between the parties" and "[t]hreatened its employees with the loss of jobs, and the loss of wages and benefits if they failed to select new Union officers and because of their support for the Union," according to a 2002 United Mine Workers Journal article. According to a January 15, 2006, article in The Columbus Dispatch of Ohio, Murray owns Ohio s two largest mines, which "recorded injury rates about one-fourth higher than the national average last year while being cited for serious violations by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration [MSHA]." In 2005, federal inspectors cited one of the mines, Ohio Valley Coal Co. Powhatan No. 6, "for 494 safety violations and the company paid $147,431 in fines -- nearly triple the combined amount of fines levied against Ohio s nine other underground coal mines." An October 20, 2006, article in Kentucky s Lexington Herald-Leader described Murray as "a huge donor to Republican senators" and reported on a meeting at an MSHA office in which "inspectors confronted him [Murray] about safety problems at his mines." During the meeting, Murray reportedly made reference to his connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and McConnell s wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao: "Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials ... Murray said: Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss, according to notes of the meeting." The article added: "Murray, in a recent interview, denied that he referred to McConnell sleeping with Chao." CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux concluded the report: MALVEAUX: And while that energy CEO calls global warming "goofy," others say it involves a very grave situation. A new climate report from the United Nations warns that millions of people will go hungry, thirsty, and suffer disease as the world s temperature rises if the world doesn t act. The report warns of rising sea levels swallowing up some coastal cities like New York. Scientists say that climate change could mean a new dust bowl bringing on drought in the Southwest and making it even hotter, and bring on a wave of animal extinction. Experts say polar bears could vanish this century because they will live on ice that will melt. However, during the segment, on-screen text read: " Global Goofiness : Blasting Global Warming s The Situation Room: MALVEAUX: Now an issue involving a well-known Democrat -- Al Gore -- a planet in peril and global warming gloom? "It s all just ridiculous," says one man. He says all the forecasts for disaster will themselves be disastrous for one American industry. CNN s Carol Costello in New York. Carol, who is making these claims? COSTELLO: Who is making these claims? Well, his name is Bob Murray. He s one of the few CEOs in the coal industry to openly mock Al Gore and what Murray calls "militant environmentalism." His words so blunt, he s attracting a lot of attention. [begin video clip] COSTELLO: Bob Murray is a coal miner-turned-CEO of Murray Energy Corporation. He does not hide his disdain for what he calls the "global goofiness campaign." You could say he s the anti- Gore. MURRAY: I would describe Al Gore as the shaman of global goofiness and gloom and doom. COSTELLO: Murray calls Al Gore and his Hollywood friends "elitists" who see the working class as abstractions to push their agenda. Needless to say, he was not impressed by Gore s testimony before a congressional hearing on global warming. GORE: If the crib s on fire, you don t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action. The planet has a fever. COSTELLO: Murray calls that "hysteria," saying Congress doesn t understand the consequences of bills to curb global warming. MURRAY: Every bill that s been introduced to address it is going to destroy manufacturing jobs in America. It s going to raise the electric rates for people on fixed income. COSTELLO: Murray says 52 percent of our electricity is generated by coal. It s the cheapest way to make it. Environmentalists say it s also the dirtiest way, accounting for a third of carbon dioxide emissions, which many scientists say is the culprit behind global warming. Murray says maybe, but if companies are forced to cut back emissions without needed technology not now available, manufacturers will simply outsource overseas. MURRAY: It s a human issue to me because I live among the people that wear the hard hats, and I saw what happened in 1990 with the Clean Air Act, and this will be much worse. And we must prevent that, because lives will be destroyed for little or no environmental benefit. [end video clip] COSTELLO: We must stress that most in the scientific community says global warming does exist and must be dealt with. We also called on Al Gore for a response. His camp reiterates that by saying, "To say that this is a debate between former vice president Al Gore and the coal companies is a mistake. Today, the scientific community has once again spoken loudly and clearly and confirmed that global warming is real. It is caused by human activity, its consequences are serious, and that actions must be taken now to avoid the worst damage." Suzanne. MALVEAUX: Well, Carol, does Murray believe that there is any room for compromise here? COSTELLO: You know, he really does. What he s really concerned about are people losing their jobs. If all of these emissions controls are being put into place all at one time, he fears that ll be too expensive for companies to absorb. And what happens when that happens? They lay off workers. MALVEAUX: Thanks Carol. And while that energy CEO calls global warming "goofy," others say it involves a very grave situation. A new climate report from the United Nations warns that millions of people will go hungry, thirsty, and suffer disease as the world s temperature rises if the world doesn t act. The report warns of rising sea levels swallowing up some coastal cities like New York. Scientists say that climate change could mean a new dust bowl bringing on drought in the Southwest and making it even hotter, and bring on a wave of animal extinction. Experts say polar bears could vanish this century because they will live on ice that will melt.

On the March 22 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck allowed Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) to distort former Vice President Al Gore s March 21 testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Meanwhile, Beck himself likened Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels for Gore s statement, during his testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, that he would initiate a "mass persuasion campaign" to urge Congress to act on climate change. Inhofe noted that he asked Gore at the Senate hearing to sign a pledge requiring that his Tennessee residence consume no more energy than the average U.S. household. Inhofe s pledge stems from recent allegations by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) that the Gores used more than 220,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006. Inhofe told Beck: "I said, Are you ready to change the way you live, cause you re consuming 20 times the amount of energy? and he would not respond to it. I asked him three times if you go back and review the tape." In fact, as Media Matters for America repeatedly noted, Gore did not explicitly answer with a yes or no to Inhofe s question. Gore said that he and his family "purchase wind energy and other green energy that does not produce carbon dioxide," but Inhofe interrupted him six times. It was not until Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the committee chair, promised Inhofe five minutes of additional questioning time that Gore was able to offer a full response: GORE: We live a carbon neutral life, Senator, and both of my businesses are carbon neutral. We buy green energy. We do not contribute to the problem that I m joining with others to try to help solve. We pay more for clean energy, and I think that utilities ought to provide more green energy that doesn t produce CO2, and we are in the midst of installing solar panels. Beck and Inhofe went on to discuss Gore s "mass persuasion campaign," a movement to draw attention toward the challenge of climate change -- which prompted Beck to declare that Gore "sounded a little bit like Goebbels." From the March 22 edition of CNN Headline News Glenn Beck: BECK: OK. The pledge that you asked him to sign that he wouldn t. INHOFE: Yeah. BECK: He didn t even answer the question on that. INHOFE: He uses 20 times the amount of energy as the average American and, yet, if you will look at the -- this movie, this thing that he has on, the last slide says: "Are you ready to change your -- the way you live?" Now, so I said, "Are you ready to change the way you live, cause you re consuming 20 times the amount of energy?" and he would not respond to it. I asked him three times if you go back and review the tape. BECK: Right. INHOFE: So, I think that s it. Here s what we need to do. We had a pledge for him to sign, just to do what he s asking the rest of America to do, and I think, every week or two, we should say, "All right, it s been two weeks now. Have you signed the pledge yet?" BECK: It is really -- one of the things in it that I heard yesterday in his testimony that I thought was disturbing was this -- what did he call it? -- a massive persuasion campaign. That sounded a little bit like Goebbels or Gore-bels. INHOFE: Well, yeah. But also, we had a chance -- and this plays into this. In New York, there was a bunch of his people -- and this is The New York Times; they all love him -- and yet they said in The New York Times that he is getting so extreme in some of his examples that he s hurting his own cause. BECK: Right. INHOFE: And I told him that. And that is happening. I m recognizing. We re seeing a major shift, Glenn, of the people who are his top supporters are coming over now and saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Let s look at the science again. This [inaudible] thing isn t working." BECK: Hey, you know, Senator, I tend to agree with you on the fact that he s going to hang himself. I mean, he s -- to me, it almost seems like he is going to be the next Cindy Sheehan, where the Democrats ran out to embrace Cindy Sheehan and get their photo taken and be there when it was hot, but then, once the Cindy Sheehan thing started to be exposed on who she really was, I mean, you can t -- you won t find those pictures of those people anywhere. INHOFE: I think that -- I think that s a great analogy, because, right now, if you watch very carefully, he ll -- he prides himself in trying to intimidate people or being condescending, and that just doesn t play. You know, people -- there s nothing wrong with humility. He ought to try it sometime. BECK: Senator, when he was talking about some of the programs, I cannot help but think that -- what a lot of people don t -- you know, the freshmen in college that are, you know, gung-ho on the Earth, what they don t understand, because they haven t been around long enough, is that this really is nothing but a tax program. There are millions, billions, and, globally, trillions of dollars at stake here, and that s what really this is all about, isn t it? A tax program? INHOFE: It really is. Now, what I tried to do, is I said -- I went down to the floor in 1993 when we had the Clinton-Gore tax increase. It was that $32 billion tax increase. This is a $300 billion tax increase -- 10 times greater than the other one. That means every man, woman, and child, or every family of four who s watching you right now will have to pay an additional $2,700 a year in taxes. That s huge. And so he doesn t like to talk about that. And if you notice, he would never respond to that. Well, he knows it s true. In fact, I ll tell you this: The figures that he had when he was in the White House as vice president were $338 billion. BECK: Senator, keep up the good work. Thank you. INHOFE: Hey, will do. Thank you, Glenn.

In recent weeks, in the wake of the Academy Award nomination and subsequent victory for former Vice President Al Gore s film, An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), in the best documentary feature category, followed by his testimony in both the House and Senate on global warming, the media have resuscitated old smears and falsehoods that may have been decisive in the 2000 presidential campaign. In some cases, media figures have retooled these attacks to apply to his work on global warming, and, in others, have come up with entirely new smears. Gore as a "liar" or "exaggerator" On March 21, following Gore s testimony on global warming before the House and Senate environment committees, McClatchy Newspapers uncritically reported Rep. Joe Barton s (R-TX) assertion that Gore is "totally wrong" that the burning of fossil fuels and coal contributes to rising global temperatures. McClatchy reported only that Barton "scolded" Gore for being "not just off a little," but "totally wrong," and did not note the scientific consensus supporting Gore s beliefs. In a March 22 article, The Washington Times reported that "[t]he only scientist to testify at either hearing called Mr. Gore s assertions wildly exaggerated, and quoted Bjorn Lomborg, "adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Consensus Center in Denmark," as stating that Gore "has got carried away and come to show only worst-case scenarios [that are] unlikely to form the basis for sound policy judgment." As Media Matters has noted (here and here), Lomborg has a history of misrepresenting Gore s global warming claims, and his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, September 2001), has been discredited by several well-known environmental specialists. In his March 22 "Inside the Beltway" column, Washington Times columnist John McCaslin suggested Gore s global warming warnings to be exaggerated. McCaslin asked: "Where s spring?" and wrote: "Normal high temperature for March 21 in Washington: 57," adding, "Temperature at 2 p.m. yesterday when former Vice President Al Gore testified on Capitol Hill about global warming: 43 (wind chill 38)." Reviving a familiar falsehood from the 2000 campaign, on the March 21 edition of MSNBC s Scarborough Country, Republican strategist Terry Holt stated that Gore "claimed to have invented the Internet, among many other things." In fact, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted, Gore did not claim to have "invented the Internet"; rather, during the March 9, 1999, interview on CNN s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer that gave rise to the myth, Gore actually said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." As Bob Somerby noted in a March 22 post on his weblog, The Daily Howler, during the March 21 edition of Fox News Special Report, Weekly Standard executive editor and Fox News contributor Fred Barnes called Gore "a wild exaggerator" and stated, in support, that a "U.N. panel ... says, over the rest of this century, the sea level, because of global warming, will rise 23 inches, Al Gore talks about 20 feet. There s a big difference there." Barnes was presumably referring to a March 13 New York Times article, which repeated a false comparison made by Gore critics to suggest that his claims are contradicted by findings in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Also, as Media Matters noted, on the March 21 edition of National Public Radio s Morning Edition, NPR science correspondent Richard Harris reported that "scientists do quibble a little bit about some of the facts" Gore presents in his film and elsewhere and suggested that Gore has exaggerated some of the facts. Harris apparently distorted Gore s statements about melting Arctic ice in asserting that Gore made "a few scientists a bit uncomfortable" by making predictions that "sound[ed]" overly "precise." As Media Matters has noted, in his March 19 column -- titled "Whose Ox is Gored?" -- Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund repeated misinformation from the March 13 New York Times article and produced some of his own to accuse Gore of "environmental exaggerations and hypocrisy." Gore as a "hypocrite" Numerous media figures and outlets seized on a recent press release by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), which made misleading and unsubstantiated claims about Gore s home energy bills to suggest Gore is hypocritical in his fight to combat global warming. The reports on Gore s energy bills often omitted some or all of the steps Gore has reportedly taken to reduce the effect of his energy usage, including, as the weblog Think Progress noted, signing up for green power through Green Power Switch and "purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family s carbon footprint." For example: On March 22, the Associated Press reported that Tennessee State Rep. Stacey Campfield (R) considered "adding an amendment to name Gore the hypocrite of the year " because of "high energy consumption at his Belle Meade home." The article did not report on the steps the Gores have taken to reduce the effects of their energy use. On the March 21 edition of Scarborough Country, Holt stated that Gore is "just a hypocrite" because "he himself uses more energy in one month at his house in Tennessee than most people use in an entire year at their house." Also in his March 19 column, Fund wrote that TCPR "obtained public records showing that for years Mr. Gore has burned through more electricity at his Nashville home each month than the average American family uses in a year." But in explaining Gore s attempts to reduce his effect on global warming, Fund wrote only that "Mr. Gore s office responded by claiming that the Gores purchase offsets for their carbon emissions to bring their carbon footprint down to zero, " while omitting Gore s use of "green power." As Media Matters noted, in a column appearing in the March 26 issue of Time magazine, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer repeated allegations that Gore s "Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the electricity used by the average American home," but in explaining Gore s attempts to reduce his effect on global warming, Krauthammer wrote only that he "spends pocket change on carbon credits." On the February 27 edition of MSNBC s Tucker, as Media Matters documented, host Tucker Carlson said he was judging Gore by "the rules [Gore] set out" and asked Competitive Enterprise Institute president Fred L. Smith Jr. if Gore was "living like a king, at the expense of our planet. Am I missing something?" Carlson noted the "quote, offsets " as Gore s "defen[se]" of what Carlson called "quite a big carbon footprint," but agreed with Smith that such "offsets" are like "indulgences" from "the Middle Ages." On the February 27 edition of CNN s Lou Dobbs Tonight, guest host Kitty Pilgrim noted that TCPR "says that Gore s own home uses 20 times the national average for power." Radio host Joe Madison argued that "put[ting on] solar panels" is "a good flip-flop." Radio host Mark Simone claimed that Gore was only installing panels " cause he got caught." On the February 27 edition of CNN Headline News Glenn Beck, host Glenn Beck asserted that Gore "has a huge carbon footprint" and said that the "the Gores paid almost $30,000 in gas and electric in 2006." Beck did not report any of Gore s reported efforts to reduce the effect of his energy usage. On the February 27 edition of Fox News Hannity s] using this type of energy, 20 times the national average, that [Gore s] a hypocrite?" Hannity added that Gore s energy use "is pure, Class A hypocritical living." In response, co-host Alan Colmes noted the Gores use of "green power." In his February 28 "Inside Politics" column, Washington Times columnist Greg Pierce cited part of a February 26 ABCNews.com article, which noted TCPR s criticism of Gore s "environmental hypocrisy." While the ABCNews.com article quoted a Gore spokeswoman saying that the Gores "purchas[ed] their power through the local Green Power Switch program," the Times included the same Gore spokeswoman saying only that the Gores "work out of their home" and that all that "Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it." In a February 28 editorial, The Washington Times not only asserted that "Gore apparently thinks he should be exempted personally from his own carbon morality," but repeated the myth that Gore was "busy inventing the Internet" as apparently the reason for his high power consumption. As Media Matters noted, the assertion that Gore claimed to "invent[] the Internet" has been thoroughly debunked. Gore as an incompetent campaigner As Media Matters further documented, in a March 20 column, Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris blamed Gore for his loss in the 2000 election: "A more poised, focused and self-confident campaign surely would have won the election and not just the popular vote in 2000. As the chosen leader of his party, Gore had a responsibility to wage that campaign." But Harris did not mention the treatment Gore received in 2000 from the "Freak Show" media -- a term Harris and former ABC News political director Mark Halperin coined in The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 (Random House, October 2006) and identified as a factor in the 2000 election. As Harris and Halperin noted in the book, in 2000, the media "exerted intense destructive pressure on Gore," seizing on Gore s "petty frailties" and making them his "defining" characteristics while downplaying Gore s "substantial strengths as a man and politician." Gore as fat -- "a little puffy" Numerous media figures have taken to recently ridiculing Gore for his physical appearance. For example: On March 22, the Los Angeles Times described Gore as looking "slightly grayed and a little puffy." In his March 22 Chicago Sun-Times column, Michael Sneed wrote of "ballooning" weight. On the March 21 edition of Fox News The Big Story, host John Gibson referred to Gore as "the big guy" and "Big Al" and cited a March 21 New York Times article, which, Gibson said, described "the new fullness of [Gore s] face, rather than saying he gained a lot of weight." An onscreen graphic read: "Big Al Weighs In." Gibson then claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton s (D-NY) presidential campaign was "watching [Gore s] weight" because "[t]hey figure if he loses weight, he s running" for president. Politico chief political writer Mike Allen agreed, adding: "[I]f he stays shaven, another indication." During the March 21 edition of Glenn Beck, Beck called Gore "Fatso" and claimed: "I also know that Al Gore is on a diet. I m not making that up. He is on a diet, trying to lose weight." From the March 21 edition of MSNBC s Scarborough Country: JOE SCARBOROUGH (host): Terry Holt, why do conservatives dislike Al Gore so much? HOLT: Well, what makes the criticism so effective about Al Gore is that Al Gore himself is -- generates the problem. It s not that he s just a hypocrite, and he is, but he s a braggart. I mean, he s claimed to have invented the Internet, among many other things. He claimed to have discovered the environmental problems that exist today, when, in fact, he himself uses more energy in one month at his house in Tennessee than most people use in an entire year at their house. The pristine grounds of Al Gore s house in Tennessee are backed up on the other side of the mountain by a zinc mine that his family has leased for some 30 years to a mining company. From the March 21 edition of Fox News The Big Story with John Gibson: GIBSON: Hi, everybody, the big guy is back. Al Gore took center stage on Capitol Hill, testifying before Congress as part of his ongoing global warming crusade. [...] GIBSON: Mike Allen, now, you re a political correspondent. My question about Big Al -- he weighs in -- and The New York Times described this as a "new fullness of his face," rather than saying he gained a lot of weight. I know Hillary s people are watching his weight. They figure if he loses weight, he s running. So, what s the judgment today? ALLEN: Right, and if he stays shaven, another indication. From the March 21 edition of CNN Headline News Glenn Beck: BECK: The United Nations has already developed a global carbon tax. Canada has initiated theirs. Politicians are in love with the environmental movement, not because they care about the Earth -- some of them might; some of them may not -- they just see it as a way to raise taxes, all in the name of saving the planet. I also know that Al Gore is on a diet. I m not making that up. He is on a diet, trying to lose weight. How come, Fatso? You think -- really -- I mean, really, you think people care about what you look like during your slide shows? Everybody is asleep during the slide shows, Al. This guy, I believe, is preparing a candidacy. Here s what I don t know. I m not sure when Al Gore will announce -- this summer, winter -- but it s coming. Was today s testimony actually a de facto campaign stop?