Cold day, hot speech: Gore's global warning

Al Gore's remarkable address on climate change and environmental policy won a sustained ovation from the audience that filled Manhattan's Beacon Theatre this afternoon. The man who won the popular vote in the last presidential election delivered what was certainly the best speech of his career and one of the best I've ever heard given by any politician -- lucid, learned, witty, and fearless. (It is now available here.) The event's only regrettable aspect was the absence of certain individuals who ought to have shut up and listened -- including Ralph Nader and his supporters, axe-grinding reporters who maligned Gore so unfairly in 2000, and such scientific authorities as Rep. Roy Blunt and Dr. Matt Drudge, who evidently think a winter snowstorm somehow disproves global warming. (For the rest of Joe Conason's Journal today, click here.)