documented the "swift-boating of Al Gore"

[Neil D]

MSNBC's Countdown documented the "swift-boating of

Summary: On MSNBC's Countdown, fill-in host Brian Unger denounced the baseless attacks -- including Nazi references -- against the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which chronicles former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness about global warming. Noting that these attacks ignore the scientific facts put forth in the movie, Unger characterized them as "swift-boating."

On the May 31 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, fill-in host Brian Unger, a commentator on National Public Radio's Day to Day, denounced the baseless attacks -- including Nazi references -- against documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), which chronicles former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness about global warming. Noting that these attacks ignore the scientific facts put forth in the movie, Unger characterized them as "swift-boating," referring to the attack ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during his 2004 presidential campaign. He added that "Third Reich analogies are the nuclear bombs of oratory, rhetorical, or literary devices," which "obliterate any logic or reason within miles of the hurler."

Unger pointed out that global warming skeptic William M. Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, stated that "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews," according to a May 28 Washington Post Magazine article. Unger also highlighted an unnamed pundit who compared An Inconvenient Truth to Joseph Goebbels's Nazi propaganda films. Unger may have been referring to Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, who, as Media Matters for America has documented, called the film "propaganda" and added: "You don't go see Joseph Goebbels's 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.

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