NY Times Sunday: Bushies Worried About Climate Change Film and, Will Frist Close Down Senate?

Where's the love Rupert Murdoch?

Although Earth Day was celebrated officially two days ago, and the Administration was caught flat-footed to Kerry's bad-on-the-environment charge (which is a space Karl Rove doesn't like to be at), and the Bushies have been working overtime to project a teflon image over the environment.
So it comes as no surpise that Drudge is reporting that the Administration is not happy about Fox's new $125 million enviro-disaster film. It isn't personal, guys, it's business. Drudge writes:

"Fed agencies employees (will) not to comment publicly on FOX's new summer fuss-film THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a $125 million disaster movie on 'global warming.'

"The flick, which depicts how accumulating smokestack and tailpipe gases sets off an instant ice age, is set to open on May 28.

"Few climate experts think such a prospect is likely, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Sunday, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT, but the prospect that moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate change has stirred alarm at the space agency.

"'No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with' the film, said an April 1 message to employees."

As if the Bushies are going to get the environmental vote. Not bloody likely, but they do have to trim off the hunters and fishermen and some outdoorsy folks in vital rural states, like Oregon, New Mexico and New Hampshire, where the environment is a point of pride

Actually, though, there is a serious story about conservative hunters and fishermen turning against the corporate centric environmental policy. Remember when we could eat Tuna and Swordfish? Sigh ...

Oliver Beekman in the Guardian wrote presciently, over a year ago, in March 2003:

"The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding 'frightening' phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.

"The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications battle" and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

"'The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,' Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.

"The phrase 'global warming' should be abandoned in favour of 'climate change,' Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as 'conservationist' instead of 'environmentalist,' because 'most people' think environmentalists are 'extremists' who indulge in 'some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off many voters.'

"Words such as 'common sense' should be used, with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.

"The environment, the memo says, 'is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are most vulnerable.'

"A Republican source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said party strategists agreed with Mr Luntz's conclusion that 'many Americans believe Republicans do not care about the environment.'

"The popular image is that they are 'in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically [sic] as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit', Mr Luntz adds.

Read the UK Guardian article in full here.

Read Jennifer 8. Lee's NY Times article a year ago on the memo here.

And, if you are interested, my interview with Dr. Richard A. Muller, a wonderful guy who just happens to be an expert on Ice Ages and global change over milennia.

And, in other news, Robert Novack today reports:

"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being urged by colleagues to threaten to close down the Senate for the rest of the year unless Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle ends his disruptive tactics.

"In addition to menacing all judicial nominations, Daschle is now preventing legislation from being sent to Senate-House conferences to resolve differences in bills passed by both Houses unless the outcome is guaranteed.

"Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, and other conservatives want Frist to counter Daschle by bringing the business of the Senate to a halt. This would mean passing an omnibus appropriations bill and then awaiting the outcome of the elections. Democrats could not offer their pet amendments, but it also would prevent passage of a budget resolution and, therefore, kill any chance of making the Bush tax cuts permanent."

As the NY Times reports today, the partisanship and divisions within the nation are strongly echoed in the halls of congress where, decimatingSenate tradition, Frist will openly campaign in South Dakota against his counterpart, Daschle, in his back yard.

That's cold.