In response to Al Gore energy use report:

Where’s the Tolerance?
Hateful reactions from the Left.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) recently generated headlines when it announced that former Vice President Al Gore’s Nashville estate “devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours” of electricity in 2006, “more than 20 times the national average.” This free-market think tank’s phones lit up when it analyzed Nashville Electric Service’s public records and identified an inconvenient gap between Gore’s conservationism and his energy consumption. TCPR’s one-page press release was greeted with enough megawatts of hatred to power the South.

“I was accused several times of being a ‘stupid, redneck bitch,’” recalls TCPR’s vice president Nicole Williams, who fielded numerous calls. “I repeatedly was called a ‘whore’ and asked ‘Whose whore are you?’ for three days straight, almost as if those were talking points… I was shocked by these sexist insults — basically attacking my gender.”

The calls continued beyond Williams’s Nashville office.

“I had to change my home number and get an unlisted number,” Williams tells me. “I got about 10 death threats by phone that made an impression on me. I got the ‘I’m gonna get you’-type threats more than 100 times…I was worried that I would get shot walking to my car.” Williams discovered her obsolete address posted online. “If they could find my old home address, it would not be so hard to find a current one.”

Gore’s defenders also spewed venomous e-mails. They sent TCPR nearly 3,000 Gore-related messages that exhibited the very bigotry the Left routinely denounces. Warning: These offensive, often-vulgar, and occasionally unschooled comments reveal the vitriol behind much of today’s “progressive” rhetoric.

Many e-mails displayed Dixiephobia — an intense disdain for the south and southerners.

After TCPR President Drew Johnson discussed his story on cable news, Kevin Lafferty objected: “Johnson said Gore’s home has gas lamps lining his driveway, a heated pool and an electric gate — all of which would be easy to do without. Well sure, that’s easy enough for you to say when you live in a frickin mobile home in Tennessee, eh Johnson?”