Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on global warming, the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Nobel and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead.
For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of the Nobel committee and the world, the high court's decision to give his prize to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate, to say the least.
But in a 5-4 decision, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Nobel because President Bush deserved it more.
"It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. "But President Bush has actually helped create global warming."
Even as Mr. Gore was being stripped of his Nobel, he received strong words of support from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said that the former vice president's Nobel win "shows that he is devoting his life to the right thing and should definitely stay the course."
In an interview with reporters in Iowa, Sen. Clinton said that "Al Gore should remain dedicated to the cause of global climate change, at least through November of 2008."
Sen. Clinton suggested that Mr. Gore could further research the source of global warming by immediately boarding a rocket ship to the sun.
The Borowitz Report, October 12 2007
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com. He appears at the 92nd St. Y in NYC on Nov. 7 with Alec Baldwin, Arianna Huffington, and Mo Rocca. For tickets go to 92y.org.