The New York Times has a front page story today that hunts desperately for a whiff of scandal in Al Gore's investments in green tech.
Apparently, the best they can come up with is this formulation:
Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.
Already, the usual suspects are foaming at the mouth.
The mouth breathers on digg united to drive the story onto the popular list under the blaring headline: "NYT: GORE'S BIG PROFITS FROM 'GLOBAL WARMING'.
These comments are typical:
Looks like all of Al's pr is finally going to hit paydirt. How much more proof do people need to see to know that this is all about money.....taxing a carbon based organism for carbon.....wonderfull scheme.
Its all about the money. Our money going to Al and friends
And where did this clever digger get the idea for this headline? Why, the Fox Nation, of course. Oddly, the mouth breathers on Fox Nation seem even dumber than the diggers.
What? Fat-@$$ Al is a hypocrite? No! Can't be!
Typical Politician, make up something to Dupe People out of thier money!!!!
So it's obvious the wingnuts think they're onto something. Finally, thanks to the New York Times crack reporting, they can reveal Gore's fraud to the world. So what is the evidence of this nefarious scheme that the Times comes up with?
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first "carbon billionaire," profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.
Hmmm, critics on the political right.
But Marc Morano, a climate change skeptic who until recently was a top aide to Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said that what he saw as Mr. Gore’s alarmism and occasional exaggerations distorted the debate and also served his personal financial interests.
The top aide to Senator Inhofe, global warming denier extraordinaire? Now we're in trouble.
Finally, though, the mask slips on the Times' little hit piece. Observe:
But at the hearing in April, he was challenged by Ms. Blackburn, who echoed some of the criticism of Mr. Gore that has swirled in conservative blogs and radio talk shows.
So there you have it. This documents the first example I can find of the Times' recent embrace of talk radio and right wing blogs. This is not hyperbole; recall this, from the Times' Public Editor, after the ACORN story broke:
Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was "slow off the mark," and blamed "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person "a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere."
There you have it. The Times expressly wanted to play a part in the talk radio and conservative blogosphere echo chamber, and now they have.
I don't mean to say that all the Times' reporting will be suspect from here on out, but we need to be aware that someone at the paper is pulling stories from the dark spaces of conservative talk radio and blogs, and feeding them right back. This time with the imprimatur of the "liberal" New York Times.
They went after Al Gore this time; who will be next?
Please consider contacting the Public Editor at public@nytimes.com or by phone at (212) 556-7652.