George W. Bush admits Al Gore was Right, Six Years Later

Last night, George W. Bush said:

And obviously people are concerned about rising fuel prices. All the more reason to get off oil and to promote alternatives, such as ethanol or battery technologies that will enable us to drive the first 40 miles on electricity.

We’re spending about $1.2 billion over the next 10 years to develop hydrogen fuel cells.

We need to get away from hydrocarbons here in America, for economic security, for national security and for environment reasons, as well.

Well, gosh and crackers! Al Gore said we needed to move away from hydrocarbons, he said we needed to find alternative energy sources, and he said we needed to move away from the internal combustion engine. He said these things six years ago, in the year 2000. He also said these things in his book Earth in the Balance, which he wrote fourteen years ago in 1992.

Remember how the Bush campaign responded to Gore’s calls in the 2000 campaign? Bush mocked Gore for it, and called him an America hater. Bush said, “Unlike Al Gore, I don’t consider the internal-combustion engine a threat to the future of mankind. I consider it a remarkable testimony to American ingenuity.” When asked further what he thought about Gore’s suggestion to revise the internal combusion engine, Bush shot back, “I think the vice president is probably going to have to explain what he meant by some of the things in his book, to share with us the philosophy behind some of the standards in the book.” (Bush hadn’t even read the book of his opponent at the time.)

Ralph Nader was fond of saying in the year 2000 that there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Put in a six-to-fourteen-year time lag, and he maybe, kind of, sort of, in a mostly wrong way, be partly right. But time is important, and in those six-to-fourteen years, Al Gore’s been doing some more thinking. I’m headed out to see An Inconvenient Truth today. What else will Gore suggest now that the Republicans won’t take seriously until six to fourteen years too late?