A few days ago, [tag]Bush[/tag] delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma State University and touched on his optimistic view of the future of energy technology.
“Some of the most exciting advances in technology you’ll see will be in the field of energy. When I graduated from school, cars drank gasoline. Last month in California, I saw cars powered by hydrogen that use no gasoline and emit no pollution. Within your lifetime, advances in technology will make our air cleaner and our cars more efficient; the gasoline [tag]engine[/tag] will seem as antiquated as the rotary phone and the black-and-white TV.”
What’s wrong with this message? As it turns out, nothing; I agree with the sentiment. I can’t help but think, however, that it’s interesting to hear Bush talk about the end of the [tag]combustion[/tag] engine. I seem to recall someone else saying something similar a few years back…
“We have a partnership with the American auto industry … to develop cars that achieve three times today’s mileage with the same pricing, comfort and safety; the companies and research scientists are making remarkable progress toward revolutionary change in the design and development of fuel cell vehicles.
“I was criticized for suggesting … that we should move away from the internal combustion engine over the next quarter-century. The attack was never more than smoke-and-fumes; I was calling not for an end to the car industry but for new types of cars.”
That, of course, was [tag]Al Gore[/tag] six years ago, in the revised foreword of his book, “Earth in the Balance.” As Joe Conason noted, Bush has finally come around to [tag]Gore[/tag]’s way of thinking, but Republicans, at the time, used to mock Gore’s “radical” ideas.
Back then the [tag]Republican[/tag] Party apparatchiks and all the conservative pundits ridiculed Gore’s kooky ideas about replacing the internal combustion engine…. The moronic Jim Nicholson, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, used to stand at the fax machine all day, sending out messages that attacked Gore for wanting to do away with the internal “combustible” engine, which were duly repeated by all the right-wing hacks. They used Gore’s farsighted ideas against him in places like Michigan and Tennessee, where lots of cars are built.
Now they will all tell you that Bush is simply brilliant for supporting this visionary technology. Do the math, as my friend Jack Gillis did, and it turns out that Gore’s notion of replacing the internal combustion within 25 years, as he suggested in 1992, is within a year of the date now proposed by Bush for the same goal.
I’m sure those apologies will be on their way to Gore’s desk any minute now.