Newsbusters’ Geoffrey Dickens writes, “Chevy Chase Reveals Matt Lauer Doing Charity Work for Liberal Green Groups:”
Comic legend and liberal activist Chevy Chase was invited on Thursday’s Today show to promote his NBC comedy “Community” and advocate for environmentalism on this Earth Day, as he told viewers he’ll be emceing a charity auction to benefit liberal greenie groups like the NRDC. In the process of noting some of the items to be auctioned off at the Christie’s event, including a golf outing with Bill Clinton, Chase revealed none other than Today co-anchor Matt Lauer offered his own donation – a guided tour of the Today set.
Something to keep in mind next time the show reports on environmental issues and as Mark Steyn catalogs, the endless repetition of Doomsday Enviro-Countdowns. Long before they became President Obama’s collective and collectivized state-run PR firm, one way or another, just about all arms of the legacy media are de facto shills for “Big Environment,” as Andrew Breitbart might call it — and likely will, one of these days.
In the meantime, Steven F. Hayward, writing in the Weekly Standard, finds a collective sense of “Earth Day Blues” not just in the legacy media, but throughout the left this year:
Environmentalists are used to wallowing in misery–in fact, it makes them happy–but the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this week should offer up an extra helping of woe, for the movement has lost its mojo. Opinion surveys show not only that public belief in and concern for global warming is plummeting, but that environmentalism in general is falling out of favor. They have no one to blame but themselves.
The first Earth Day in 1970 was a sensation, amounting to a coming out party for a major new social and political force, and for the next decade the environmental movement became arguably the most rapidly successful social movement in U.S. history, with a string of landmark national statutes passed in quick succession with large bipartisan majorities, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and culminating in the Superfund toxic cleanup act in 1980. But the field has been stagnant ever since, with environmental issues becoming highly polarized on ideological lines resulting in a complete stalemate on new legislative policy initiatives (though environmentalists are still thriving in the courtroom and in the bureaucracy).
In 1990, according to an ABC News/Gallup survey series, 75 percent of Americans said they considered themselves to be environmentalists, with only 24 percent saying they did not. The numbers have been slowly reversing over the last decade. As of 2008 (the most recent year the question was asked), only 41 percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, with 58 percent now saying they do not. And Gallup’s annual environmental survey also finds the public now favors economic growth over environmental protection by a 53 – 38 margin. For most of the last 25 years, even during previous recessions, the public favored the environment over the economy by as much as a two-to-one margin. In 1991, the beginning of a recession, the margin was 71 – 20 in favor of environmental protection over the economy. Surveys also show surging support for nuclear power and expanded oil and gas production in the U.S. No wonder the 40th anniversary of Earth Day is passing quietly this year.
Hayward asks, “How did environmentalists squander their vast reservoir of public enthusiasm?” And explains just that in article; definitely read the whole thing. (For my video interview last summer with Steve on the legacy of one of James Dean’s best-known co-stars, click here.)
Finally, over at Big Journalism, Humberto Fontova notes, “MSM Whistles Past the Anniversary Of a Decade-Old Outrage;” the tenth anniversary of Elian Gonzalez’ shanghaiing at gunpoint from America.
Just to tie this in with the first story above, “anarchic”, “all-American” comic Chevy Chase would likely have approved.
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