In an August, 30, Today Show interview, former Speaker of the House and American Solutions For Winning The Future mastermind Newt Gingrich (R-GA) praised the “courage” and “experience” of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), whom Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had announced as his running mate. Newt claimed:

Interestingly, she’s the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president. She was a sportscaster on local television, so she has a lot of interesting background.

Watch it:

Gingrich, a Ph. D. historian, should know that claim is laughably false. There have been at least two presidents and two vice presidents who were professional journalists before being elected to office, most recently Vice President Al Gore:

Albert Gore, Jr. 45th U.S. Vice President (1993-2000), and Democratic nominee for president, 2000. Gore served as an Army journalist at Fort Rucker and in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 and became an investigative reporter for the Tennesseean upon his return. [Biography.com]

Warren G. Harding 29th U.S. President (1921-1923). Harding was the publisher and editor of the Marion Daily Star (Ohio), before entering political office. [Grolier]

William Howard Taft 27th U.S. President (1909-1912). Taft worked briefly as a legal reporter with the Cincinnati Times and the Cincinnati Commercial. [Encyclopedia Britannica]

Charles W. Fairbanks 26th U.S. Vice President (1905-1908). Fairbanks co-edited The Western Collegian at Ohio Wesleyan University and worked for the Associated Press in Pittsburgh after graduation. [1904 Republican National Convention]

This was, of course, a much smaller confabulation by Newt Gingrich than those of his billionaire-funded “Drill Here, Drill Now” 527 campaign to place American energy policy deeper in the clutches of Exxon Mobil.

(HT: Richard Cohen)

UPDATE: Gingrich repeated the false talking point on Fox News the same day, without any equivocation:

She didn’t go to an elite school, she’s not from Princeton or Harvard or Yale, she went to the University of Idaho. On the other hand, she’s the first journalist ever to be named to a national ticket. I think, as a journalism major, she’s going to raise some very interesting questions for a lot of reporters.

Watch it:

Looks like the Congressional Democrats are shrewd enough to take on the GOP big lie that Republicans in Congress actually believe in an “all of the above” energy policy (see “The Big Energy Lie — Blog round-up“). Greenwire reports today that “Democrats plot strategy for putting GOP on its heels” (subs. req’d):

Democrats plan to return to Washington and the campaign trail next week with a message on offshore drilling that they say will put Republicans on the defensive….

On Capitol Hill, congressional Democrats say they will try to corner the Republicans by offering them votes on their own agenda with Democratic priorities mixed in.”We’re about to do a political reverse takedown on the Republicans,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Top House Democrats say that shortly after Congress reconvenes, they will put on the floor a piece of legislation that will include an expansion of offshore drilling but also a renewable electricity mandate, energy-efficiency standards for buildings and oil industry tax provisions.

Some Democrats have started to describe the legislation and the broader message on energy as “all of the above” — a term first coined by House Republicans to describe their own legislation.

I have been saying for more than a month a deal makes sense on both policy and political grounds (see “Since offshore oil is de minimis, why shouldn’t Obama and the Dems make a deal? Part 1“). I do think the House is making a mistake pushing a renewable electricity mandate rather than a long-term extension of the renewable energy tax cuts found in the Senate Deal (see “The good, the bad and the ugly of the Gang-of-10 drilling deal, Part 2: Something for nothing?“). I will blog on that when Congress returns.

Here is the rest of the story:

Read more

President Bush exploited this morning’s press briefing on the “follow-up efforts” to Hurricane Gustav to attack Congress about lifting the offshore drilling moratorium. Stating that “what happens after the storm passes is as important as what happens prior to the storm arriving,” he made the declaration that “our discussion here today is about energy.” Bush wasn’t referring to the 1.4 million Louisianans who have lost power due to the storm’s destructive force, and chose not to mention the 102 deaths caused by Gustav. Instead, he went on the attack:

I know that Congress has been on recess for a while, but this issue hasn’t gone away. And, uh, this storm should not cause members of Congress say well, we don’t need to address our energy independence. It ought to cause the Congress to step up their need to address our dependence on foreign oil. And one place to do so is to give us a chance to explore in environmentally friendly ways on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Watch it:

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were both floored by Bush’s decision “to use another hurricane in Louisiana to promote offshore drilling at this point,” after he “performed so poorly during Hurricane Katrina.”

Bush’s tasteless politicization of an ongoing civil emergency repeated tired right-wing talking points. As Van Jones told the Wonk Room last week, Bush is selling false solutions and more pollution:

Let’s be very clear. Number one: There’s no such thing as American oil any more. These are multinational corporations. If you let multinational corporations drill all this oil, they’re going to sell it to the highest bidder, whether it’s China, or India, it doesn’t matter. Why would we throw away America’s beauty chasing the lost drops of oil, so multinational corporations can sell it to India and China?

And people also got to remember, we didn’t stop this as an environmental issue. We didn’t stop offshore drilling for the duckies and the fishies. We stopped it because coastline communities were suffering. Because the property owners, the children who live in those coastline communities — not when there were oil spills — but every day, when your child goes out to swim, he comes back covered in oil, you have to use gasoline to get the oil off your child. That was happening coast to coast

Transcript: Read more

Because of Hurricane Gustav, I delayed the start of this drinking game. But this is the best one ever:

Down a shot whenever any speaker uses some variant of the word “drill.” You must stop drinking for an hour anytime a speaker mentions “global warming” or “climate change.”

Now nothing can get you plastered as quickly as listening to a Bush speech on climate or energy and taking a shot whenever he uses the word “technology” — that can be a staggering (literally) 19 shots in 21 minutes.

But I do believe this is the only drinking game in recorded history where you can get drunk during the commercials! I bet a couple of Pickens’ ads — “I say drill, drill, drill” — would slow down even the irrepressible Alaskan supermom Sarah Palin pretty fast.

WARNING: Do not, under any circumstances, listen to the RNC while driving or operating heavy machinery like a drill rig or a single-hulled oil tanker near an Alaskan port….

Related Posts:

• Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook: “Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah.”
• Drinking game for Bush’s Yogi Berra climate speech
• Bush/Nero climate speech: “Technology, technology, blah, blah, let’s fiddle until 2025″³

The fabled Northwest and Northeast passages are now open. That makes the North Pole on the island for the first time in human history, most likely for the first time “since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.”

In the last few days, however, Arctic ice melt has slowed, so we might not see a record this year, as the NSIDC daily graph makes clear:

But whether or record is set this year or not doesn’t really matter have little bearing on the future of the Arctic. The National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Mark Serreze said last Wednesday, “No matter where we stand at the end of the melt season it’s just reinforcing this notion that Arctic ice is in its death spiral.”

And that, of course, means polar bears populations will also enter a death spiral (see “Will polar bears go extinct by 2030? — Part II“).

You can listen to the streaming video live here. Later, Earth Beat Radio, hosted by the irrepressible Mike Tidwell, will post the interview here.