ABC’s Bill Weir Feels Guilty about Driving SUV
‘Good Morning America’ plugs TBS special but doesn’t air any critics.

By Ken Shepherd
Free Market Project
Nov. 18, 2005

     “I have an SUV, and I feel guilty about it,” ABC reporter Bill Weir confessed to liberal activist Laurie David. Absolving him of his venial environmental sin, David counseled Weir on his penance, “Next time you're ready for a new car, think about a change.”

     But before hitting the Toyota dealership for a Prius, Weir did David a service when he plugged “Earth to America,” a TBS special she helped produce which airs Sunday, November 20 from 8 to 10 p.m.

     Not only did Weir promote a two-hour program in direct competition with his network’s hit shows “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and “Desperate Housewives,” he failed to challenge any of the celebrities with whom he chatted about their views on global warming.

     Weir stated as a given that “virtually all of science agrees our planet is changing,” but the arguments on global warming, said Weir, are over the reasons why. He didn’t explain that many scientists dispute parts of David’s climate change mantra. Nor did he bother to question the idea that global warming is – as the “Earth to America” special claims – a manmade problem.

     Instead, the ABC correspondent matter-of-factly introduced his segment saying the stars of the TBS special, have “the toughest ticket in town,” in their quest to “save the planet.”

     Although Weir argued that “most of the performances try to stay nonpartisan in an attempt to motivate both red and blue America,” the celebrities he featured in his report exhibited classic Hollywood liberal guilt. For example, former “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander proudly noted that he clothed his infants in cloth, not disposable diapers while comedian Bill Maher equated driving SUVs with funding terrorism.

     “Earth to America” will be the second media coup in as many weeks for David, the wife of “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David, whom Weir labeled the “mastermind” behind the special.

     Last week Mrs. David was a featured special guest alongside environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in “The Heat Is On,” a Fox News special which temporarily shelved the network’s “fair and balanced” rubric to showcase only liberal environmental activists.