By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
An American shares the Nobel Peace Prize; anticipating inconvenient flak
Has the shitstorm started already? Let the flinging of mud begin… Albert Gore, Jr. shares the Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, from a field of 181 official nominees, joining such past winners as Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Medecins sans frontieres, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, The Dalai Lama and Henry Kissinger. [Gore’s statement is here. The Guardian’s even-handed coverage. CNN offers “The White House offered an initial reaction to the Nobel win by President Bush’s 2000 opponent. “Of course, “we’re happy that Vice President Gore and the IPCC are receiving this recognition,” said deputy press secretary Tony Fratto.” The New York Times, chose to highlight on their online front page a blog commenter who called Gore a “hypocrite,” something I can’t recall being done to other figures in and out of politics. (The page changed fairly quickly.) Maybe they couldn’t get Bill O’Reilly on the line? The Washington Post tick-tocks Gore’s possible next moves; the Her-Trib looks at others who were considered; Canada’s London Free Press tipped Inuit activisit Sheila Watt-Cloutier’s efforts to preserve the melting Arctic; CBS News touts Gore’s last minute trip overseas after venturing Gore would jump into the Democratic fray. Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian touts the oddsmakers. The New York Times notes a meeting of 15 Nobelists in Potsdam, Germany, on the subject of global warming. My conversation with Mr. Gore from the time of the release of An Inconvenient Truth is here. [Photo © 2006 Leah Missbach Day.]