"Al Gore blasts Bush in Seattle"

Joel Connelly (Seattle P-I):

In the contemptuous words of Al Gore, the Bush administration's latest, tentative proposals to deal with climate change are "a transparent ruse" and "the latest in a long effort to obfuscate and delay."

The former vice president, whose crusade to make the world aware of global warming has generated an Oscar-winning documentary and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, ridiculed proposals that President Bush is taking to this week's summit of major industrialized powers.

Gore ticked off the latest bad news, from glacial earthquakes on Greenland to a just-released study showing that a California-sized chunk of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf experienced rapid snowmelt and temperatures as high as 41 degrees.

"In the face of this, our country is going to the G-8 summit to monkey wrench and disrupt the consensus otherwise in place among such allies as Great Britain, Germany and France," he said during a Seattle visit.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Seattle P-I, Gore decried the policies and leadership style of the president who lost the popular vote but won the White House on the votes of five conservative Supreme Court justices.

Wartime assaults on civil liberties were a black mark even on the distinguished presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln, but Gore argued that abuses -- and the potential for excess -- are much greater in today's technological society.

The Bush administration has featured "mass eavesdropping of American citizens," he said, as well as "White House directives that clearly involved the torture of captives" -- something George Washington opposed.

"What's different now is a systematic approach, its extensive application, and technology that makes it possible to conduct abuses on a much larger scale," Gore argued.

In his new book "The Assault on Reason," Gore details what he calls "evidence available in abundance" before 9/11 that terrorists were planning a major assault inside the United States.

He cites the now-famous August 2001 CIA report headlined: "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." According to journalist Ron Suskind, Bush dismissed his CIA briefer with the remark, "All right. You've covered your ass now."

"It's impossible to know," Gore replied when asked if a full-scale FBI mobilization would have stopped the hijackings.

"We use the old truism, 'Curiosity killed the cat,' " he added. "Well, 'incuriosity' can cause great damage to nations. ... The 'incuriosity' in this case was clear and chilling. To have received such a warning -- and not asked any questions, and not called any meetings -- I don't pretend to understand it.

"The most important part of intelligence is the consumer: The consumer is the president of the United States," Gore argued.

Blunt talk, and the growing scientific consensus on global warming, has made Gore a hot ticket.

In his new role -- he's been nicknamed "the Goracle" -- he has reached people by reaching over the heads of political reporters who in 2000 fussed over such matters as his earth-tone suits.

Gore loves to show off his knowledge, but a global audience has developed an appetite for details, albeit slightly leavened with self-deprecating humor.

The former vice president's appearance last night at Seattle Town Hall sold out in just three minutes.

A computer crashed in Toronto as 23,000 people tried to get tickets to hear him. Gore drew 10,000 people to Taco Bell Arena in Boise: In 2000, he took just 28 percent of Idaho's vote.

"An Inconvenient Truth," the Oscar-winning film that is essentially a Gore Power Point presentation, is the highest grossing documentary film of all time.

In "The Assault on Reason," Gore decries the declining participation in America's public life, blamed on the fact that the average American watches more than four hours of television a day. He cites Dan Rather's description of TV news as "dumbed down and tarted up."

His book harkens back, at several points, to a great president who was the greatest wordsmith ever to occupy the Oval Office. Urging the nation to think and act anew, Abraham Lincoln declared: "We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."

What do those words mean in today's divided, war-weary America? Gore returned to his seminal issue.

" 'Disenthrall' now means breaking free of the illusion that the earth's atmosphere is an open sewer. It means we no longer accept that we can dump 70 million tons of pollutants into the atmosphere every 24 hours."

And yet, in Gore's view, the country and its media are going about business as usual.

"Britney Spears' problems had us enthralled. So did Anna Nicole Smith's autopsy. How long will Paris Hilton be in jail?" Gore asked.

With Americans blobbing out in front of the tube, he argued, they are susceptible to fear and twisted fact ... which is exactly what happened to the country in advance of the disastrous Iraq war.

"The immune system of American democracy has been weakened by use of manipulative techniques and the dominant media of the age -- television," he said. "The country as a whole was manipulated (on Iraq). The White House and the Defense Department have a coordinated strategy with a specific image -- a mushroom cloud over an American city."

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were depicted as allies. The Iraqi dictator was described as eager to turn nuclear weapons technology over to his "good buddy" Osama.

"Every part of that was false," Gore said.

In his book, Gore relates an Oval Office story in which Bush told a Republican senator: "Look, I want your vote -- I'm not going to debate with you."

On Monday, he cited the example of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who told Congress in February 2003 that occupation of Iraq could require several hundred thousand soldiers.

"Not only was his advice rejected," Gore said, "he was punished. It delivered a chilling message to other generals and admirals. Dissenting views were not heard after that.

"In this administration, disagreement is not welcome."