Former US Vice-Pres. Al Gore recently gave a speech indicting the Bush adminstration for what he termed its inaction on global warming.
He gave the speech in New York on Jan. 15, a day that many areas of the US Northeast recorded the coldest weather in a half century.
On Jan. 14, the Drudge Report said that Gore planned the speech against the counsel of senior advisers "in what political watchers are calling possibly the biggest gaffe in years."
However, subsequent coverage of that speech as a gaffe proved underwhelming. Newswire stories even dutifully noted that Gore claimed the brutal cold afflicting the Northeast then was indicative of the weather extremes that would accompany the planet's inexorable march toward a swampish hell if it doesn't give up its sinful fossil-fuel ways.
But the coverage was muted, and the late-night comics and editorial cartoonists didn't pounce on Gore the way they did, for example, at Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's public meltdown after the Iowa caucuses. Did they wish to spare him the embarrassment? Think of the usual response by the punditry when a public figure commits the rhetorical equivalent of flatulence in church. Now think of hyenas and a wounded antelope.
No, this "biggest gaffe in years" was largely shrugged off because, quite frankly, energy and the environment just really aren't that prominent on the public's radar scope right now.
Now think jobs, economy, war, terrorism, health care costs, education, budget deficits, etc.
Many Americans worried about these issues would think Gore was tilting at windmills.
New Apollo Project
Given a lack of fervor among Americans on the issues of global warming and energy independence, it's curious to see the launch of a new initiative on energy and the environment that has received similar underwhelming attention.
As President George W. Bush was detailing his proposals for future manned moon and Mars space exploration, a Washington, DC, briefing touted a "New Apollo Project" that calls for the US achieving almost total energy independence in 10 years—stop me if you've heard this one—by diversifying the country's energy sources away from fossil fuels to promote renewables in power, develop hydrogen fuel cell cars, mandate tougher energy-efficiency standards, and push new urban transit and "smart" growth projects.
The price tag: federal outlays of $300 billion.
The Apollo Alliance backing the project says it would create 3 million new jobs with all this new infrastructure and projects and be self-financing with "U$306.8 billion in increased federal tax revenue from increased earningsU." Plus, it would slash the trade deficit, cut energy consumption, and reduce pollution. Uh-huh. Seems it skipped the parts about losing weight and regaining potency too.
The idea is to emulate the Apollo moon program of President John F. Kennedy: to amass government wealth— that's yours and mine, by the way—behind a massive, visionary goal.
Trouble is, the 1969 Apollo moon landing was at its core a single task of engineering—albeit history's most important—putting humans on another planetary body and bringing them back again safely.
Compare that with the New Apollo Project's goals of turning the hydrocarbon economy upside down and reordering the fabric of American society, all within a decade.
Of course, all this hinges on Americans being willing to endure such upheaval all for the sake of killing the bogeyman Big Oil. Think of the public reaction of sport utility vehicle-loving Americans to the last gasoline price spike.
Now think: angry rhino.
Political shadings
Who is behind the New Apollo Project? Visits to several self-styled "progressive" web logs, or blogs, yield this information: The initiative is coordinated by the Center for American Progress, a new liberal think tank founded by former President Bill Clinton's last chief of staff, John Podesta. The blogs say Podesta created CAP as a counterweight to the dozen or so giant conservative and libertarian think tanks that command much media attention. The blogs also contend Podesta wants CAP.to formulate the next Big Idea to propel the Democratic Party into the national consciousness as a leader on "progressive" issues.
The alliance web site, by the way, has some pretty pictures of windmills. Also by the way, the phrase "tilting at windmills" comes from a cornerstone of Western literature, Cervantes' Don Quixote. This novel also gave us the eponymous appellation "quixotic," after its central character, who took up his lance against windmills because he thought they were dragons. "Quixotic" today is defined by Merriam Webster's dictionary as "foolishly impractical, especially in the pursuit of ideals." Today, a psychiatrist would have another name for Don Quixote:
Delusional.