Noel Sheppard's Very Convenient Lie

Noel Sheppard despises Al Gore -- so much that he's willing to spread lies about him.

ConWebWatch has previously documented examples of the animus the NewsBusters associate editor has for the former vice president, particularly on the issue of global warming. Sheppard has smeared Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" as a "schlockumentary," an "award-winning abomination" and a "farcical political advertisement"; Sheppard has also misled his readers by repeating claims that a British court found the film had errors in it without also noting the court found that many of the film's claims were fully backed up by the weight of science -- specifically that its four main hypotheses were "very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].”

But through all of this, Sheppard has been spreading a claim he has made no effort to back up with real evidence: that Gore has become an environmental activist in order to get rich.

One early appearance of this assertion came in a February 2007 NewsBusters comment thread: "He's a charlatan who doesn't believe in anything but himself and attaining power. And, he's commiting a fraud on the population for his own benefit, not yours, and certainly not mine."

It's a claim Sheppard has made numerous times in various forms over the past year:

• "This charade has made Gore a very wealthy man in the last few years -- recent reports claim that he's made upwards of $100 million since the 2000 elections -- and it seems quite unlikely that he’s going to tell all of his adoring fans that he’s been lying all along for his own personal and financial gain." -- June 30, 2007
• "This becomes even more absurd when the ringleader and Global Warmingist-in-Chief is identified to have made up to $100 million in the past seven years, and stands to make significantly more if this issue stays in the limelight. Just how much are regular folks who are scraping to make ends meet, save for their kids’ college costs and their own retirement willing to sacrifice so that Al Gore can become a billionaire?" -- July 9, 2007
• "NewsBusters readers are aware that one of my contentions concerning global warming alarmism is that those involved are doing it for the money. ... Yet, what it demonstrates is that there's a lot of money in global warming, and all those involved in advancing the hysteria are looking for their payday just like Al Gore. After all, you didn't really think this was about saving the planet, did you?" -- Sept. 25, 2007
• "Americans willing to look at the manmade global warming debate with any degree of impartiality and honesty are well aware that those spreading the hysteria have made a lot of money doing so, and stand to gain much more if governments mandate carbon dioxide emissions reductions. In fact, just two months ago, ABC News.com estimated soon-to-be-Nobel Laureate Al Gore's net worth at $100 million, which isn't bad considering that he was supposedly worth about $1 million when he watched George W. Bush get sworn in as president in January 2001. Talk about your get-rich-quick schemes, how'd you like to increase your net worth 10,000 percent in less than seven years?" -- Oct. 3, 2007
• "As NewsBusters readers are well aware, we have for months been chronicling Nobel Laureate Al Gore's profit motive concerning the advancement of climate change hysteria." -- Nov. 19, 2007
• "As irrefutable evidence mounts that Nobel Laureate Al Gore's climate alarmism is about nothing other than lining his supposedly green pockets with green currency, manmade global warming skeptics around the world wonder when the former vice president's house of cards will collapse." -- Nov. 22, 2007
• "How long has NewsBusters been telling you that this whole charade is about Gore getting rich? ... When will people learn that the only cause Al Gore has ever been concerned with is himself?" -- Dec. 9, 2007
• Gore "likely has made what some estimate is $100 million in the past seven years selling this canard to the public." -- Dec. 21, 2007
• "In a year when a charlatan -- one that has done absolutely zip, zero, zilch to solve the various wars raging across the globe, several involving his native country -- can win a Nobel Peace Prize, nothing should come as a shock." -- Dec. 30, 2007

While Sheppard cites the "irrefutable evidence" he has been "chronicling," his alleged evidence is circumstantial at best, if not outright misleading.

For instance, as support for his claim that Gore is only in it for the money, Sheppard has pointed out that Gore has "made upwards of $100 million since the 2000 elections," variously citing articles by Fast Company and ABCNews.com as evidence. But the Fast Company article (as does the ABC article) tells a different story about where Gore's money came from:

In addition to the steady flow of six-figure speaking gigs, he has become an insider at two of the hottest companies on the planet: at Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), where he signed on as an adviser in 2001, pre-IPO (and received stock options now reportedly worth north of $30 million), and at Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), where he joined the board in 2003 (and got stock options now valued at about $6 million). He enjoyed a big payday as vice chairman of an investment firm in L.A., and, more recently, started a cable-television company and an asset-management firm, both of which are becoming quiet forces in their fields.

What the article makes clear -- but Sheppard never does -- is that much of this wealth has nothing at all to do with Gore's global warming activism. Not Google, not Apple, not the investment-firm work, not the TV company, which operates the cable channel Current. The asset-management firm, which focuses on "sustainability values," is arguably global warming-related.

Fast Company also makes clear that even Gore's global warming activism was not a money-maker until recently, making it unlikely that he got into it for purposes of creating a cash cow:

His most public effort was dusting off a slide show on global warming he had put together in 1989. It was full of depressing data about melting ice caps and killer hurricanes--not a likely vehicle to spark a resurrection. As recently as May 2004, he took some serious ribbing for presenting a version of it at an event timed to coincide with the goofy global-warming film The Day After Tomorrow. A few months later, when television producer turned environmental activist Laurie David invited her A-list pals to see the slide show, she had a hard time getting them to attend. "People were still mad about the election," she recalls. "And nobody cared about global warming."

So, until a couple years ago, Gore couldn't get arrested talking about global warming, let alone make some coin from it. Talk about an inconvenient truth.

Related articles on ConWebWatch: NewsBusted: The Sheppard File NewsBusted: The Sheppard File, Global Warming Division Lies, Conservatives and Statistics: Marc Morano's Fantasy An Inconvenient Smear

Other alleged evidence is dubious or irrelevant at best. For instance, in claiming that "this whole charade is about Gore getting rich" in a Dec. 9, 2007, post, Sheppard cited an article in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper claiming that a speech Gore gave in Britain was boring and he "was being very precious and demanded his own VIP room before the event." But much of the Daily Mail quoted is anonymously sourced, and the Daily Mail is a right-wing paper -- things that should be taken into consideration, and things Sheppard didn't mention. Further, it proves nothing about Gore's purported avarice.

Sheppard has been called on his lie before -- and given the extremely flimsy "evidence" he has served up this far to support it, as well as his long history of misleading about global warming, this can described as nothing else but a deliberate lie -- by no less than fellow conservative Dennis Miller. As ConWebWatch noted, in an October 2007 appearance on Miller's radio show, Sheppard asserted that Gore "realized, 'I can take this hysteria, turn this into a movie, and make millions of dollars.' And now, $100 million later, he's right." Miller reminded him: "Now, to be fair to him, I do believe that he had cobbled together a little, like, Stone Age equivalent of this slide show, as he called it, before then."

One has to wonder if there isn't a bit of jealousy in Sheppard's attacks on Gore, particularly this one; after all, Gore appears to have been much more successful in his business endeavors than Sheppard, who is listed in his NewsBusters bio as an "economist and business owner" -- which can't be paying all that much if he's having to toil away on a blog.

There's also the double standard factor that Sheppard refuses to acknowledge: if Gore is doing it for the Benjamins, it can also be argued that Sheppard is as well. As a titled editor at NewsBusters, the perch from which he hurls his smears, Sheppard is presumably on the MRC payroll. If Gore's wealth is such an issue, Sheppard should also reveal how much he's getting paid for his mercenary work of peddling falsehoods and distortions.

Waddaya say, Noel? Do you actually have the goods, or will you finally admit that you don't?