Remote Hog

Global Warming: What You Need to Know With Tom Brokaw
10 tonight
Discovery

Dan Rather is contemplating a lawsuit against former employer CBS and launching a new news program on HD Net, whose only other program I know of is a movie clip show hosted by sometimes Weekly film contributor Robert Wilonsky. Meanwhile, Peter Jennings, ex- of ABC, has been working on his next project forever. Dude's such a slacker! Then there's the last part of the Ex-Big Three Network News Trifecta, Tom Brokaw, the mealy-mouthed former frontman of NBC Nightly News, who now comes off as the most professional and elder statesmanly. But what's this? A foray into junk science? Oh, Tommy, this could be the worst potential blow to your career since guest Kelly Lange walked over to Johnny Carson's desk carrying a cue card with the words "KEWWY WANGE"—a jab at the way you used to pronounce the KNBC weather girl's name when you were in the anchor chair there. And now you're willing to have yourself compared with the man who invented the internets? Boy, and how. Brokaw says he was impressed by Al Gore's monster hit documentary An Inconvenient Truth, going to far as to compare it favorably to Global Warming: What You Need to Know: "It's the same science that we are drawing upon and it's irrefutable." Wonder what his ol' bosses at pollution-enabler GE think of that!?! In Brokaw's news special, cameras scan the globe for evidence of global warming's effects, but there's one thing you won't see in the final cut. In a preview tape, during a segment about the United States' refusal to participate in the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, a picture is flashed of a demonstrator holding a picture of President Bush emblazoned with "toxic Texan." That's been yanked, Brokaw says, because political blame should be distributed more broadly. Spoken like a true company man.