Bush to Honor Noble Prize Winners at White House Monday

[illinoisprogressive]

Oh, the irony!

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8nwMDNrp_DbQkdrAynlv0NN_RYg



WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former US vice president Al Gore will make a triumphant return to the White House on November 26 when US President George W. Bush honors US Nobel Prize winners, a Bush spokesman said Friday.

It will be Gore's first time visiting Bush at the White House since the Republican took office in January 2001 after the flawed 2000 election pitting them against each other ended with a controversial US Supreme Court ruling.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Gore would be part of a group of five US Nobel laureates that Bush will welcome into the Oval Office.

The former vice president, who served under Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, has enormously boosted his international standing with an aggressive campaign to sound the alarm over climate change.

Gore won the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts earlier this year, while his related documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won him an Oscar.

The Bush administration has loudly denounced the former vice president for his criticisms of the war in Iraq and of a once-secret program allowing the US government to spy on US citizens inside the United States without a warrant.