Inside the Beltway

D.C. screening

Mike McCurry, who was a press secretary to President Clinton, will introduce a panel discussion next Wednesday evening after a special Washington screening of Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” to be shown in the amphitheater of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The panel will address “Lessons of Munich: How Should Free Societies Deal with Terrorism?” pertaining to the aftermath of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Hosts of the screening — the movie is not rated, but is said to be gripping — are Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures, Foreign Policy magazine, and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Kyoto conspiracy

It’s a difficult week for officials in Washington to get too worked up over global warming when — two weeks before the official start of winter — they’re shoveling snow from sidewalks and shivering in subfreezing temperatures.

Nevertheless, representatives from 189 countries are gathered this week in Montreal for the 11th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, wishing no doubt that President Bush — who prefers to hibernate in the winter — would join them in finding ways to curb global warming.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, Maine Republican, even called on Mr. Bush this week to “engage” in the climate change discussions, reminding him that, by treaty, the United States is obligated to join constructively in the dialogue.

“The United States has a legal obligation … to participate in a substantive way to combat global climate change,” she scolded. “With global temperatures rising at an alarming rate, we must address this issue immediately.”

Meanwhile, Inside the Beltway’s insider at the talks, Christopher C. Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says the Montreal gaggle has attracted virtually every type of activist, including the environmental clearinghouse IndyMedia, which has announced a bizarre twist to Mr. Bush’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.

The group is drawing attention to “The Truth About 9/11,” which relates to lies surrounding the “official” story of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Several videos it cites “attest to the illegal government of George Bush, who did conspire to murder 3,000 American citizens.”

“Can you count to three?” it asks. “Then you might like to explain how only two planes hit the Twin Towers of [New York’s World Trade Center], and yet a third building collapsed without the benefit of a plane.”

Mr. Horner says the “revelation” dovetails nicely with last month’s word by the same bunch that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has endorsed Kyoto.

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