I would love to see Palin duke it out with Gore. It would be hilarious.
Sarah vs Al: The People Want This One
Posted by Charles Cooper
Don King, are you listening? And if the world's most hair-raising promoter won't take this one on, then I officially volunteer to set it up.
Al Gore, who is making the rounds to hawk his latest book, gave the back of his hand to Sarah Palin when Andrea Mitchellasked him about the ex-Alaska governor's dismissal of "junk science" surrounding the Copenhagen climate change summit this week.
"Well, you know, the -- the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality," Gore said. "After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this? The scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal."
We're heard it all before from Gore. Same goes for Palin, who has since become fond of using Facebook to make her pronouncements. Responding to the former VP, Palin repeated her claim that a trove of stolen emails undermines climate change arguments which she says "are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive."
On and on it goes, where it stops - wait! Give it up to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, who asked the peripatetic Palin whether she would dare get into the ring with Gore and duke it out in a debate over the existance of climate change. Here's the but if you don't want to go through all the bloviation, here is the relevant excerpt:
Ingraham: Would you agree to a debate with Al Gore on this issue?
Palin: Oh my goodness. You know, it depends on what the venue would be, what the forum. Because Laura, as you know, if it would be some kind of conventional, traditional debate with his friends setting it up or being the commentators I’ll get clobbered because, you know, they don’t want to listen to the facts. They don’t want to listen to some reasonable voices in this. And that was proven with the publication of this op-ed, where they kind of got all we-weed up about it and wanted to call me and others deniers of changing weather patterns and climate conditions. Trying to make the issue into something that it is not.
Ingraham: But what if it's an Oxford-style, proper debate format. I mean, he’s going to chicken out. I mean, if you challenge him to a debate, do you actually think he would accept it?
Palin: I don’t know, I don't know. Oh, he wouldn’t want to lower himself, I think, to, you know, my level to debate little old Sarah Palin from Wasilla."
No time to be shy, "little" Sarah. Shooting spitballs and then hiding behind your computer screen isn't going to get you into the White House. But nailing Gore's carcass but good - that's the stuff that conservative dreams are made of.
I think this will take more than a little bit of outside prodding. When asked about her interest in a debate with Gore, Palin balked at getting set up by Gore's "friends." If that's her biggest problem, then she should listen to Ingraham, who is hardly going to be confused with someone from MoveOn.org. The two sides could find a neutral setting like the Oxford Union, which has honestly hosted generations of debates, and head into the debate knowing they were on an equal footing.
In fact, the more I think about this, the more I want it to happen. Look, it's been a long and lousy year for most folks (unless you happen to work for Goldman Sachs.) Unemployment soared, the Octomom and Jon Gosselin wouldn't disappear and the Yankees won the World Series. Could it get much worse? (I ask that knowing full well that the Tiger Woods novella is just getting started.)
So as 2010 comes to a close, we deserve a break. A prime time one-on-one showdown - the people deserve this one. Bill it as "The Thrilla From Wasilla" versus "The Tennessee Tornado" - or whatever - and donate the proceeds to charity. But bring it on.
Tags: charles cooper , coop's corner , al gore , sarah palin
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