BREAKING NEWS

If any individual should be held accountable for unleashing George W. Bush on the world, it would have to be former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich. As it turns out, while leading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he was off enjoying an extramarital affair of his own. That Newt could find the time to impeach the president while servicing both his wife and mistress, approaches Medal of Honor territory.

In an interview with Jame Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, Gingrich acknowledged enjoying chuckle monkey love with a woman other than his wife while presiding over the removal of the Leader of the Free World.

Gringrich told Dobson, ''There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards. But a finer Republican, you'll never meet.''

Insisting his pursuit of Clinton's infidelity was not hypocrisy, Gringrich concluded:

''The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge. I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials.''

Gingrich's steadfast pursuit of President Clinton while pleasuring two women will go down in the annals of history as one of the most selfless acts of lust ever bestowed on a free people. After all, had Gingrich chosen not to judge his fellow sinner, the 100,000 dead from Bush's war might have lived long enough to soil the world with adulterous acts of their own.

OZONE MANIC

Despite his prodigious size, Al Gore can walk on water--or so I believed. He has all the qualities one could ask for in a leader: genius, judgement, humility, and social consciousness. As an elected senator, vice president, and president, Al has always appealed to our better angels. So why is he so hell bent on destroying the environment?

If you ask yourself what emits 377,000 lbs. of ozone -depleting greenhouse gasses annually, 20 times the national average and the equivalent of 20 Hummers humming around the clock, the answer crushes you like an anvil on Wylie Coyote. It's the Gore homestead in Tennessee, this according to Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow of the Brookings Institution, author of The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, and author of today's NYTimes Op-Ed piece, "Al Gore's Outsourcing Solution."

The Gore camp will argue that our elected, but never-seated president pays extra for wind power and buys carbon credits to the tune of $1,247.50, rounded to the nearest dime, to offset his voracious energy appetite. Carbon credits, you'll recall, are used to invest in technologies that, in theory, reduce pollutants equal to one's overproduction. Credits can also be purchased from under-polluting entities in a zero-net-sum game.

But, like Wylie Coyote, have we all gone Looney Tunes? When it comes to pollution, zero-net-gain, means zero-net-loss. Environmentally, this is not a wash. Only a drastic reduction in carbon emissions will forestall cataclysmic climate change.

It's hard to imagine how Al's $1,247.50 will negate his negative impact on the environment. It is estimated that it would require planting 40,000 trees to counter the harmful effects of Al's abode. That's a lot of raking.

Can we buy our way out of destroying our Gossamer-thin atmosphere, or must we make some lifestyle choices? And who better to lead the way, than our nation's greatest environmental proponent?

I'm willing to make exceptions. If Al would like to take 365 plane flights a year to environmental speaking engagements, that's pollution well spent. But when one's house is measured in acres, it hard to seize the high ground.

That Al's tireless crusade to build awareness of the environment has achieved far more than one man's waste should go without saying. But to ask others to downsize -- to progress through reverse growth -- one must lead by example.

PNN is not asking Al to live in a FEMA trailer--just a reasonably sized home. If Al insists on a larger house, I know of a white one on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that desperately needs a leader.