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Hot and Bothered

Global warming-fighting duo takes on senior Bush Administration official
By Kate Sheppard

After two weeks of traveling the country in a biodiesel-powered bus, Laurie David, Sheryl Crow, and crew rolled into our nation's capitol on Saturday. It was last stop on their college tour, and the Thelma and Louise of climate change were set to play an Earth Day show the following evening just spitting distance from the Hill. The purpose of their tour had been to raise awareness on college campuses about climate change, and with the last stop, they were set to bring that awareness to our elected officials.

That evening, Crow and David made a stop at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, where they got an unexpected chance take the tour directly to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove. Conversation between the two parties got heated pretty quickly when the ladies brought up global warming, asking Rove to take a "fresh look" at climate change and U.S. policy toward addressing it.

According to the pair, Rove "immediately got combative," and began reciting official talking points about China and research funding. In Joe Stupp's account of the event in Editor & Publisher, Crow and Rove were " jawing like a baseball manager and an umpire arguing a call," while David stood beside her offering support. Rove brushed them off and turned to head back toward his table.

As the pair recounted on the Huffington Post and on Crow's blog, the singer-activist then reached out to touch Rove's arm. The senior Bush administration official swung around and growled, "Don't touch me."

"You can't speak to us like that, you work for us," Crow told him.

"I don't work for you, I work for the American people," he replied.

"We are the American people," Crow said.

Of course, the two parties later had differing accounts of the events.

"She came over to insult me and she succeeded," Rove said to the Washington Post.

"I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove," David told the Post. "He went zero to 100 with me … I've never had anyone be so rude."

"I honestly thought that I was going to change his mind, like, right there and then," David later told the Associated Press.

The encounter quickly became the story-of-the-moment on all the major mainstream media outlets, landing in the Washington Post, Hollywood Daily, E! Online, Fox News, and the New York Times, among plenty of others. Early Sunday morning it was on all the major television news networks including CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

It didn't take long for liberal conservative, and green blogs and the gossip columns to catch on, either:

Think Progress.org

National Review Online

Ecorazzi.com

NYDAILYNEWS.COM

socialitelife.com

Even some red-staters have come out in support of the ladies, including MSNBC's Joe Scarborough:

"Whether you agree or disagree with their environmental message, I suspect you would be impressed with these women's dedication if you got the chance to spend the day with them … The female version of the Blues Brothers took their ministry to save the planet Saturday night from the tour bus to the White House Correspondent's Dinner, where Laurie tried to convert Karl Rove," writes Scarborough. "She soon found out that college kids listening to a rock star are more open-minded than presidential aides who feel besieged."

At Sunday's concert, Crow dedicated the last song of the night to her "new friend," Karl Rove. The tune? A cover of the Beatles "We Can Work It Out."