“Two weeks ago in Bonn, Japan showed the world the benefit of being in the game, emerging from an historic 100-nation climate change accord as a hero and as a leader. In the final agreement, Japan won significant concessions and left with their national interest strengthened in exchange for joining the international process.
“By contrast, our delegates were literally booed out of Bonn. On six separate occasions, in just six months, the administration has demonstrated a willingness to walk away from agreements that were embraced by many of our closest friends and allies and broadly supported by the international community: the Kyoto Protocol [etc.]. … Instead of asserting our leadership, we are abdicating it. Instead of shaping international agreements to serve our interests, we have removed ourselves from a position to shape them at all.”
–Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, in an Aug. 9 speechdenouncing the Bush administration’s unilateralist foreign policy.
“Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that– (1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would–
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissionsfor the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within thesame compliance period,
or
(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of theUnited States. …”
–Senate Resolution 98, to which Daschle voted “yea”on July 25, 1997.
(Thanks to multiple readers.)
Got a whopper? Send it to chatterbox@slate.com. To be considered, an entry must be an unambiguously false statement paired with an unambiguous refutation, and both must be derived from some appropriately reliable public source. Preference will be given to newspapers and other documents that Chatterbox can link to online.
Whopper Archive:
Aug 10, 2001: Robert Mueller
Aug. 3, 2001: Barbara Olson
July 27, 2001: Jeffrey Archer
July 20, 2001: George W. Bush
July 13, 2001: George W. Bush
July 6, 2001: Sumner Redstone
June 29, 2001: David Brock
June 22, 2001: Edmund Morris
June 15, 2001: George W. Bush
June 8, 2001: Nepali Prince Regent (subsequently, King) Gyanendra
June 1, 2001: Mary McGrory
May 25, 2001: Ari Fleischer
May 18, 2001: York, Pa., Mayor Charles Robertson
May 11, 2001: Ted Olson
May 4, 2001: Rear Admiral Craig Quigley
April 27, 2001: Ben Affleck
April 20, 2001: South Carolina state legislator Chip Limehouse
April 13, 2001: Gray Davis
April 6, 2001: Sumner Redstone
March 30, 2001: Spencer Abraham
March 23, 2001: George W. Bush, Rep. Jennifer Dunn, and/or the Treasury Department
March 16, 2001: George W. Bush
March 9, 2001: Russ Freyman, spokesman, National Association of Manufacturers
March 2, 2001: Paul O’Neill
Feb. 23, 2001: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Feb. 16, 2001: Oscar spokesman John Pavlik
Feb. 9, 2001: Lynne Cheney
Feb. 2, 2001: Bobby Thomson
Jan. 26, 2001: Denise Rich
