Inside Politics

Critics call Kyl

Arizona Republican Party officials have turned against Sen. Jon Kyl for sponsoring the Senate immigration bill that many conservatives have denounced as amnesty. The state party chairman called a press conference to denounce the bill, the New York Times reports, and the day after the proposal was announced, the eight phone lines at the party headquarters were so jammed that staff members almost decided to close the office.

“Every single line was literally off the hook most of the day,” said Sean McCaffrey, the state party’s executive director. “None of these were happy calls. Truly, from our headquarters to the 15 county parties, the ratio was 100 to zero. Not a single county chairman, not a single legislative district chairman reported having a single call from a grass-roots individual saying, ‘Please pass this immigration bill.’ ”

Last week, thousands of angry calls poured into Mr. Kyl’s office.

“Yes, I have learned some new words from some of my constituents,” Mr. Kyl, Arizona Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday.

Critics say Mr. Kyl, who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, ceded too much in the negotiations over the measure.

“This bill seems to be 90 percent Ted Kennedy and 10 percent Republican,” said Brett Mecum, a spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party.

Global warning

The consequences of ignoring global warming could be “so much worse” than the war in Iraq, former Vice President Al Gore told an audience in Washington last night.

Mr. Gore declared, “The invasion of Iraq was a big mistake,” reports The Washington Times’ Christina Bellantoni. “If we do not quickly change course and start sharply reducing global warming pollution, it will be a much bigger mistake.”

The Democrat signed copies of his new book, “The Assault on Reason,” at George Washington University, and told 1,500 attendees the Bush administration and the press ignored warnings the war would be a “costly and dangerous mistake.” Now 150,000 troops are “trapped in the middle of a civil war,” he said.

At one point, hecklers took over the event, shouting about “hedge funds” and “genocide in Africa” as Mr. Gore attempted to take pre-screened questions.

Carla Cohen, co-owner of event site Politics and Prose, called the interruption “an example of an assault on reason.”

The former vice president’s fans — many sporting Gore ‘08 stickers — were exuberant and cheered wildly when he said, “Something that’s hard to define has gone badly wrong in the way American democracy now operates.”

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