not of this world

latest letter to the editor, just couldn’t resist…

I am offended by Peter Nichols offense (Letters, 12/20) at the Sentinel’s publication of the Al Gore editorial cartoon. No, actually, being an evil conservative I just disagree with his ideas and positions, without taking those disagreements as matter for personal offense, nor for attacking the integrity of the one with whom I disagree. I wonder what Mr. Nichols thinks about the fact that the Clinton-Gore administration never submitted the Kyoto protocol to the Senate for ratification, rather Gore did the same kind of grandstanding then as now when he symbolically signed the protocol in front of television cameras. Even that administration knew what a disaster ratification would have been for the American economy given the broad exemptions for developing competitor nations like China and India. Gore jetsets around the world with simplistic, and dare I say unscientific rhetoric about the earth “having a fever”, while leaders with real responsibilities for the well being of millions of people, and for protecting American sovereignty from the tyranny of unelected global bureaucracies, have to make decisions not so amenable to photo ops and savior accolades. America has a long history of harsh satire in her politics, and neither “side” is stranger to such satiric extremes expressed within the harmless medium of cartoons. You are free to express your intolerance of that point of view as the Sentinel is to publish it, and as I am to say that I enjoyed the mockery of a man I think is so irresponsible in his rhetoric.