Inside the Beltway

Change the world

Former Vice President Al Gore is — for the 20th year running — calling for a “wrenching transformation” in society, and our lifestyles, in order to avoid ecological calamity that remains, as always, just over the horizon unless we heed the green Cassandra’s call.

Onetime Virginia Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, a top fundraiser today for former Virginia Democratic Gov. Mark Warner as he tests the 2008 presidential waters, is a longtime Northern Virginia auto dealer, putting motorists behind the wheels of Land Rovers, Volvos and Subarus.

“Can a car dealer help slow global warming?” Mr. Beyer asks in his latest mailing, headlined “Fight for a Cooler Planet!” and “Break this Seal, Change the World.”

Indeed, if somebody buys one of his new cars or SUVs, Mr. Beyer will plant a tree for them, roll out a free bicycle, and provide a pair of tickets to see the former vice president’s new movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which the mailer calls “a nonpartisan look at the science of our planet, presented by Al Gore.”

Reaction?

Christopher C. Horner, senior fellow and counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says: “If only we all drove Volvos, apparently. Somehow, I don’t think Don Beyer has seen the movie.”

Keep your chin up

Tired of all the Al Gore bashing is Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“I’m sending Al a note this week telling him to keep fighting, to keep standing up for the truth no matter how vicious the attacks,” Mr. Dean pledged yesterday, noting Mr. Gore’s pursuit of solutions to global warming were actually compared by one pundit to Adolf Hitler’s pursuit of genocide.

Says Mr. Dean: “Facts are facts. Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence.”

Ted’s intrusion

We had to laugh when President Bush, touring the Laredo Border Patrol Sector Headquarters in Texas this week, was provided a close-up look at a video surveillance facility where more than a dozen screens displayed various vantage points along the Mexican border.

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