On Parshall's show, Burnett attacked Gore again while admitting he hadn't seen An Inconvenient Truth

Summary: Syndicated radio host Janet Parshall and Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, accused Al Gore of advancing fictional theories on global warming through An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary film about his campaign to raise awareness of global warming. While admitting that he had yet to view Gore's movie, Burnett attacked Gore for "demean[ing] the millions of people killed in various wars, pestilences, plagues" with his advocacy of governmental policies aimed at countering global warming.

After playing an audio clip of the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film about former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness of global warming, syndicated radio host Janet Parshall attacked the movie, stating, "[T]here's more fiction than fact in this film." Parshall then introduced Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), who said: "[O]n many issues, I consider Mr. Gore to be an elitist, I consider him to be a liar, and I consider him to be a hypocrite. But on global warming, I don't consider him to be a hypocrite. I consider him to be a true believer." Burnett, who later admitted that he had not seen the film, accused Gore of "demean[ing] the millions of people killed in various wars, pestilences, plagues ... in horrific human and natural catastrophes, disasters throughout history."

From the May 25 edition of Janet Parshall's America:

PARSHALL: I think I saw this movie. I think it was called Chicken Little. Right? Oh no, no, no, no -- this is a different film. I think it's called An Inconvenient Truth. It was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, and if you know anything about that film festival, I'm not surprised it was a hit. Now, I can't figure out, is Al Gore trying to be a movie star, the next American idol, or is he still running for the office of president of the United States? One thing's for certain though: Based on this movie, he's not a scientist. How do I know? Because there's more fiction than fact in this film.

And to back up my position, we have Doctor Sterling Burnett with us, who's a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. And Sterling, I've seen you take him to task all over the place on this, because you and your organization have been speaking out, saying "Hey, wait a minute. I know they don't want to be bothered by the facts, but we are not on a ticking time-bomb, which is what Al Gore would like us to think." First of all, back up for a little bit. He wrote Earth in the Balance [Plume, 1993]. Obviously, he's concerned about the environment.

BURNETT: Sure.

PARSHALL: But why is this such a hot-button issue for him? He says it's the biggest problem.

BURNETT: I guess I can't explain his motives or, you know, why Mr. Gore's taking this too hard. One thing I will say is, on many issues, I consider Mr. Gore to be an elitist, I consider him to be a liar, and I consider him to be a hypocrite. But on global warming, I don't consider him to be a hypocrite. I believe him to be a true believer. So, for whatever reason, he does think global warming is the greatest threat ever posed to civilization. And I think that demeans the millions of people killed in various wars, pestilences, plagues, you know, in horrific human and natural catastrophes and disasters throughout history. But that's his belief, and, you know, I don't question his belief. I think he's that honest in that. I just think that he's misguided, and I think that based on the evidence I've seen, it's not Apocalypse Now, it's "Apocalypse Not."

PARSHALL: Very good. Very sharp, Sterling.

[...]

PARSHALL: All right, so let's go to some of the issues that Al Gore wanted to address in his film. And he did, he talked about creating these holes these in the ozone. The theory is that the cloud layer is removed, you get this hole, you get more solar activity -- that's what's causing the global warming, because the layer of protection has been eroded away, because man is not a producer, he's a polluter. Right?

BURNETT: Well, you know, I don't exactly understand. I haven't had the opportunity to see the film. I don't, to be honest, it's not released in Dallas. I think it's only in L.A. and New York right now.

Media Matters for America previously documented Burnett's comparison of Gore to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels during the May 23 edition of Fox News' DaySide. Discussing An Inconvenient Truth on that show, Burnett declared, "You don't go see Joseph Goebbels' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't want to go see Al Gore's film to see the truth about global warming."

As noted by the weblog Think Progress, ExxonMobil Corp. has bankrolled the NCPA with more than $390,000 since 1998. Burnett recently penned an editorial defending former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond's retirement compensation (which totaled $190,000 a day in 2005) that did not mention NCPA's financial ties to the company.

—M.B.