The consequences of ignoring global warming could be "so much worse" than the war in Iraq, former Vice President Al Gore told an audience in Washington tonight.
"The invasion of Iraq was a big mistake," Gore said. "If we do not quickly change course and start sharply reducing global warming pollution it will be a much bigger mistake."

The Democrat signed copies of his new book "The Assault on Reason," at George Washington University, and told 1,500 attendees the Bush administration and the media ignored warnings the war would be a "costly and dangerous mistake." Now 150,000 troops are "trapped in the middle of a civil war," he said.

At one point hecklers took over the event, shouting something about "hedge funds" and "genocide in Africa" at Gore as he attempted to take pre-screened questions.
Carla Cohen, co-owner of event host Politics and Prose, called the interruption "an example of an assault on reason."

Before the talk, singing protesters greeted Gore, some chanting "global warming is a fraud" while a man dressed in brown robes with a belt made of leaves donned a plastic Gore mask and alternated that with a polar bear face on a stick. His fans, however -- many sporting Gore '08 stickers -- were exuberant and cheered wildly when he said, "Something that's hard to define has gone badly wrong in the way American democracy now operates."

-- Christina Bellantoni, Capitol Hill correspondent, The Washington Times

UPDATE: Don Surber was under the impression that "dissent is patriotic."