After USA Today Issues Correction, Fox Host Repeats Smears Against Gore
After USA Today Issues Correction, Fox Host Repeats Smears Against Gore
Earlier this month, Peter Schweizer published a hit piece on Al Gore’s environmental habits. (Schweizer works at the Hoover Institute which has received nearly $300,000 from Exxon Mobile since 1998.) It was an obvious attempt to discredit Gore’s efforts to combat the threat of global warming.
The problem was the piece was inaccurate and USA today was forced to print a correction. That didn’t stop Rich Lowry, filling in for Sean Hannity, to repeat Schweizer’s false claims on Fox after the correction was printed. Lowry also took the liberty to add some new smears. Watch it:
Here are the facts:
1. Gore does not receive royalties from a zinc mine. From the USA today correction: “In a column that appeared Aug. 10 on the Forum Page, writer Peter Schweizer inaccurately stated that former vice president Al Gore receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property in Tennessee despite his environmental advocacy…the mine was closed in 2003.”
2. Gore has never owned any Occidental Petroleum stock. His father worked for the company for several years and his parents used to own some stock. All of it was sold years ago.
3. Gore pays for his own carbon off-sets. Parmount is also purchasing off-sets above and beyond what Gore is doing individually.
The critics have no answers for Gore’s scientific arguments so they’ve decided to smear him personally. Desmog blog has more.
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51 Responses to “After USA Today Issues Correction, Fox Host Repeats Smears Against Gore”
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Rich Lowry,now that say’s it all.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:07 amOf course, this should surprise no one. The personal smear has been the main Republican tactic for a long time.
What’s surprising and depressing is how well it works.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:08 amI guess if you repeat a lie often enough. . . . .
Faux news at it’s best!
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:11 amWhen fighting against things that you can not win against…..like the truth….,smear the messenger.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:15 amIt’s funny that the right-wingers will latch onto any little bit of info, no matter how detached or distant they have to stretch it, to discredit somebody. GOre’s family owned stock YEARS ago suddenly becomes Gore has no credibility because he himself owns stock in a certain company.
Yet they never EVER turn that eye towards their own parties problems which don’t need a “six degrees of seperation” mentality to tie to somebody. I refer mainly to Cheney’s Haliburton stock which he still holds despite claiming otherwise many times. That is okay and doesn’t make Cheney a hypocrit or a war profiteer…but Gore’s parents having stock who knows how many years ago…that is terrible to right wingers and pure hypocrisy.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 am@ #3
Exactly. I heard that smear stated as fact all over Fox News Radio last week. Swift Boating at its finest.
Makes me sick.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 amWas there any mention of Cheney’s association with Haliburton or Rumsfield’s with Tamiflu? No? {feigning shock}
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:19 amThe Republicans have created a whole heirarchy and network to act as an echo chamber for their smears and spin. Media Matters does an excellent job of illustrating how they use it; one will quote another, the next says something like, “its been reported that, …”, the next will say, “everyone knows that …”, and eventually the “fact” that ‘Bill Clinton held up airtraffic for a haircut’ or ‘Sandy Berger smuggled documents out of the national archives in his pants’ is accepted as common knowledge, even though it is pure invention. It is time to regulate Fox ‘News’ as campaign spending and make its advertizers count all their advertizing budgets as political contributions.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:26 amSome schmuck repeated these smears in an Op/Ed printed in the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend.
The lies can go all around the world before the truth has a change to get its shoes on….
Think they’ll print a correction?
Cheers,
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:27 amIt would have had more impact if Big Al would’ve called a press conference (he can do it!) and called the lying bastards out. This is what passes for political accountability today…blatant b.s. Just like Kerry, Clinton and the rest of the nicey dinos, they’ll take no personal involvement in their own name or word. I’d like to see Gore get as passionate about our countries situation, as he did with Tipper on stage in public view. Ya really have to wonder just how committed any of these people are. Maybe when the Gore’s, Kerry’s, Clinton’s , Schumer’s, and Biden’s are eating out of a dumpster, and living in cardboard boxes down by the river…they’ll finally RAISE HELL! Oh yeah…throw Obama in there too…he’s a little two faced bitch for not standing with Feingold. Well, might as well throw Feingold in there too. He’s remarks about Isreal left me with visions of ww. 3. The political process in this country is broken and stupid. Ya can’t fix stupid!
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:30 amDigg.com had this story on it when it first came out, and rabid right wingers were proudly proclaiming how hypocritical Al Gore is, how he’s an “elite” and that elites always make rules they don’t want to follow, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
This is the reason why liberal and progressive causes are hated so thoroughly by so many Americans, even though all progressive causes are in the interest of the average person. False information like this used to go ignored, or it was just left as it was because liberals had no way to combat them. It’s great to see that one of the senators that stood firm for the creation of the internet is now being defended by it with facts, whereas before all he would have done was stand there and laugh about it.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:32 amOK, yeah, it was the same guym Peter Schweitzer thagt had the article in the Cronk.
I’ll write them an e-mail and reference this article.
Cheers,
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 amI imagine Fox’s hit piece about Cheney doing business with Iran is right around the corner, right…?
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 amMore lies. Fox is just “National Enquirer” tabloid news. They purposely ignore facts.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:35 amThe Reichstag is in its death throes and is becoming very desparate
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:41 am#15 I agree. More proof is found in today’s ThnkFast thread, where some idiot troll is trying to claim that Bush did not say this:
the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn’t
when in fact he said exactly this:
the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn’t
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:43 amIsn’t there something in the 10 commandments about not telling lies? Or do all those friggin’ monuments that the reich wingnuts keep putting into or in front of courthouses only have 9 of the commandments? (Then again, maybe it’s only 8 — something in there about not killing people too as I recall…).
Oh wait — I’ve got it — Alberto Gonazalez must have issued an official WH opinion stating that the 10 commandments weren’t official US policy and therefore the US government wasn’t bound by them. Or perhaps when God issued the 10 commandments to Moses, GWB issued a signing statement saying that certain of those commandments didn’t apply to Repuke-licans…
Why does the right wing hate Christians and Jews who follow the 10 commandments?
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:49 amGore says pollution is bad. But he drives a car. Therefore, pollution is good. QED.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:54 amFox News lying again, imagine that. And all the idiots would watch it now will be foaming at mouth about this one.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:57 am#11
YEah, I love how they all call Liberals and left-wingers “elite” and yet they never seem to notice that it is the Republican party who routinely sides with the wealthy and business over the people. It is the Republican party embedded in scandals right now regarding corruption and illegal lobbying. It is the Repbulican party who run the K-street project ensuring that the ties between the wealthiest of wealthy and republicans become closer than ever.
Not to mention the Republicans belive in business above human rights, maintaining their secrecy while spying on everyone else’s, affirming their right to do what they want when they want while stripping the rest of our freedoms, their right to make as much money by any means possible while ensuring the middle and lower classes gets unfairly squeezed out of the race, giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich while doing nothing to help the financial burdens on the rest of the people, etc, etc, etc.
Yeah…and yet they call the left-wingers “elite”.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:07 pmThat’s right.
And when Democrats go on FOX they enable and legitimize these lies. Even Lamont.
Democrats should be running the HR 635 commercial on prime time TV and boycotting FOX.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 pmI would like to see a prominent Democrat take action against the lies. Why doesn’t someone sue for slander?
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:26 pmWho expects the truth from FAUX? I gave them up for the Daily Show…more fun and not as dishonest.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:02 pmAs we can see by these attacks that GORE is really the one Republicans worry about for 2008.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:04 pmThey’d better be worried.
They Called It Katrina
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 22 August 2006
One year ago tomorrow, on August 23rd, Tropical Depression Twelve formed over the eastern Bahamas. The depression was upgraded to a tropical storm the next day as the energy and winds within intensified. It was the eleventh tropical storm of the season, and thus was given a name beginning with the letter “K.”
The watchers at the National Hurricane Center called it Katrina.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:05 pmWow. This was on all different news sources too. And I believed it.
Time and time again, if a republican says it, you have to research and make sure its true.
That’s two things now proven wrong. The conservatives putting Bill Maher in the hall of shame for correctly saying the US is in the bottom for giving. And now for pointing out false claims about Gore.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:08 pmSmear and Fear Republicans in action. They have no ideas so they can only try to tear down people who do have ideas.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:09 pmA correction: The name of the company is “ExxonMobil,” not “Exxon Mobile.”
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:35 pmThe media lying about Gore? Why that’s unheard of!
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:36 pmYou know,
I lived in Syria and Jordan for when I was a kid (my dad worked there) and when I was there I learned Arabic, and I had the privilege of listening to their state sponsored news broadcasts. I would then watch CNN international, or the BBC, and the story would be completely different.
Their news broadcasts were also filled with praise for the president (syria) or the King (jordan) and full of criticism and treason charges against the opposition.
Now that we are finally back home, every time I watch Faux News, it’s like deja vu. I seriously start remembering the state sponsored news casts of Syria and Jordan.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:37 pmI hope all of you are buying carbon credits to offset your pollution. If your not, your just another group of elite hypocrits!!
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:50 pm(YAWN) Another intelligent, superior post by Roger Roger
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:58 pmThat’s funny. I saw that piece over the weekend and thought “whatever, it’s FOX. I’ll believe it when I see it on a reputable news organization.”
I was right. FOX is bullshit for those who need it.
Weaklings.
August 22nd, 2006 at 2:55 pm.
The left has gotten its shorts in such a bunch, that Al Gore is the voice of logic? Get your heads back into the sunshine!
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:32 pmUncle Sam has got its short in a bunch because his friends are all liars. Get your head out of your ass Uncle Sam.
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:36 pmDon’t worry everyone - Katie’s taking over the news on Sept. 5th, and she’s going to get to the bottom of all this for once and for all, or is it, she’s going to get all of us in her bottom at once…..did I hear that promo correctly?
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:42 pm#34 Sam - you’re so very right - after all, it was the “voice of logic” that told us Iraq’s reorganization would take 90 days and pay for itself, and that “no one” knew the levees would not hold. Who could possibly argue with that kind of track record for laying out exactly what was going to happen, then seeing the results match right up with the predictions. Man, you are so right, and I’ve been so wrong for so long. I’m quitting my job today to go campaign for Katherine Harris, ’cause she’s going to be our proud nation’s first woman president.
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:49 pmBut, can anyone explain why Gore does not live a “carbon neutral” lifestyle himself?
Remember his lame interview on the Daily Show where he completely dodged the question, “Do you ever think some people have a point when they criticize you for riding in private jets?” No answer.
He is a hypocrite.
He is a loser.
Please stop backing this man.
He will never be president, but if nominated will cause another disastrous Republican presidency.
There are 2 people, that if nominated, guarantee a Republican victory.
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:23 pmHillary Clinton and Al Gore.
Only hardcore Democrats like these people, and not all at once.
Please stop supporting these people.
Jake - Al won the election in 2000, and would’ve been re-elected in ‘04. I take your point - he has amassed a lot of negative mythology, mostly lies stuck to him by the shit-flingers that dumb people get their opnions from. This fall, and the pres. ballot in ‘08 are crucially important, but don’t let your urgency to accomplish those goals turn you into someone else who believes the lies the shitflingers perpetuate. Remember, the shit-flingers can do what they did to Al to anyone at all….they will try to do it to whomever opposes them, and as long as dumb people need to get their ideas from hateful loudmouths they will succeed to some extent.
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:38 pmRich Lowry is ingratiating himself with the Republiscum party after speaking out against Bush recently. He’s on fact-free Fox - so there is no need for honesty.
Fox should be contacted and demand a retraction from Lowry.
Most of us need to drive cars, heat our homes, and use appliances - what we can do is press for change in the resource we use for those needs.
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:41 pmEconomically, an entire industry focused on alternative and innovative methods for energy supply can employ Americans.
Schweitzer and other conservatives seem to think that being an environmentalist is akin to being a luddite. The Japanese have proved that you can do otherwise.
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:00 pmWhat I find ironic here is that these “smears” just point out that Gore is speaking out against some of his own personal interests. This is like saying: “see even a *polluter* feels that we should be doing something about global warming.” How does that detract from his credibility? Seems to me it only makes him *more* credible!
But of course the point of these smears is the *tone*. Wow, what a terrible guy he is! He’s practically a … … Republican!
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:52 pmGood point #42.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:08 pmThis is not like a Repug who denies global warming from his single-occupied SUV.
Despite the fact that the charge is totally fabricated - slanderous calumny - their argument does seem to be convoluted.
TP Judd. Liar.
Gore has never owned any Occidental Petroleum stock. His father worked for the company for several years and his parents used to own some stock. All of it was sold years ago.
Let’s look at BearManPig’s big gains in Oxy after making sure the oil company got the Elk Hills deal.
Public Financial Disclosure - 1998
Occidental Pet. Stock, Value of assets: $250,000-$500,000
Public Financial Disclosure - 1999
Occidental Pet. Stock, shares in process of transfer to trust. Value of assets: $500,000-$1,000,000
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468
Home » Issues » Money & Politics » Al Gore: The Other Oil Candidate E-Mail Page
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Al Gore: The Other Oil Candidate
by Bill Mesler, Special to CorpWatch
August 29th, 2000
RELATED STORY
Integrity in the Balance
Bill Mesler reports on Gore’s broken promises on a toxic Ohio waste incinerator.
For thousands of years, the Kitanemuk Indians made their home in the Elk Hills of central California. Come February 2001, the last of the 100 burial grounds, holy places and other archaeological sites of the Kitanemuks will be obliterated by the oil drilling of Occidental Petroleum Company. Oxy’s plans will “destroy forever the evidence that we once existed on this land,” according to Dee Dominguez, a Kitanemuk whose great grandfather was a signatory to the 1851 treaty that surrendered the Elk Hills.
Occidental’s planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn’t only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy’s plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.
Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 “Reinventing Government” National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale’s environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.
That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney’s plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don’t know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.
Nowhere is Al Gore’s environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his “big oil” opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals.
(About the author. Bill Mesler is a Washington-based reporter. His work has appeared in the Nation, Mother Jones and the Progressive, among other publications.)
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:48 pmGore DID have a zinc mine on his property. It has been closed only since 2003. The cleanup of said mine will take YEARS!!!!!!! Gore = Liberal = Hypocrite. LOL!!!!!
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:39 pmso, hippie — gore sold oil stock from the close of his father’s estate in 1999 for, quite frankly, an unimpressive profit (compared to what some politicians rake in on deals like this), and you make the sorry choice of pasting an article drawing a comparison to cheney?
cheney’s halliburton stocks were worth $241,498 in 2004, and now exceed $14 million dollars, an increase of over 6100%. mind you this is a company that has received several no-bid contracts since the start of the iraq war.
also interesting to note is that this article was published in 2000, well before cheney would begin reap these rewards which make gore’s windfall seem like chump change.
so cheney, the oil industry’s go-to guy, somehow equates to gore, the oil industry’s guy-they-wish-would-die, with respect to oil profiteering?
you people really are desperate.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:51 pmGore DID have a zinc mine on his property
so what you wingnuts are saying is that you want environmentalists to ignore economic realities and push for changes so radical that a massive upheaval could occur? and otherwise they’re hypocrites?
personally i hope for rational environmentalists that realize mining of almost all varieties is a crucial part of our economy and will be necessary for the foreseeable future. i tend to think al gore acknowledges this.
but your warped version of reality seems to be the only way you get to have a good old-fashioned smear campaign…so knock yourselves out.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:07 pmSo it begins. It’s apparent who the rethugs fear the most. Gore’s past is hardly germane to this issue. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s when they’re not corrected, as in the manifold fiascoes committed by our “dear leader” and his cadre of protectors, thugs liars, and thieves that real harm is done to us. Let’s face it: bush & co. can’t run on their dismal record. The only thing left is to defame their opponents and, almost surely, tamper with yet another election.
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:37 pmThe Republicans have created a whole heirarchy and network to act as an echo chamber for their smears and spin. Media Matters does an excellent job of illustrating how they use it; one will quote another, the next says something like, “its been reported that, …â€, the next will say, “everyone knows that …â€, and eventually the “fact†that ‘Bill Clinton held up airtraffic for a haircut’ or ‘Sandy Berger smuggled documents out of the national archives in his pants’ is accepted as common knowledge, even though it is pure invention
Thank you Peter Christian for speaking truth to power. The Repugs are such liars claiming that Sandy Berger stole those documents. They cranked up their echo chamber, which includes CNN and the New York Times, and manufactured this “pure invention,” as you so accurately called it. Only smear merchants like the GOP would dream up something as unbelievable, and blatantly false this. I bet those librarians were Repug agents in league with Fox and taking orders from Karl Rove himself. I don’t know why anyone believed this made up story to begin with. Sandy Berger was probably the most trustworthy person in the Clinton Administration. How dare the Republipuke spin machine malign the best National Security Advisor that the Democratic Party has to offer?
December 28th, 2006 at 11:38 ami think that al gore is brave and down to earth instead of airing out his dirty laundry as a come back you should us real facts to support your opinions.
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