Jimmy Carter, Al Gore -- Not in their house

Jimmy Carter once said Americans had an "inordinate fear" of communism. Now some folks at Brandeis University say Carter is having a Soviet-style news conference. It seems he will talk about his new book, but he doesn't want to engage anyone in a back-and-forth about it.

Likewise, Al Gore is ducking people who say "An Inconvenient Truth" overstates the possible hazards of climate change.

These two incidents aren't all that unusual. People in public life, including corporate America, want to control their message. It would be good, however, if Carter and Gore could go into hostile territory on the record once in a while.

While we're sort of on the subject of climate change, take a look at this. It seems some climate scientists are afraid that their colleagues are going overboard hyping the danger of global warming.

I probably bugged my wife to death over the weekend. I've read the journalism about climate change, and I've read the hype. I really want to dig into the science. Every so often I would ask a question like, if 30 years ago we were supposed to be entering another Little Ice Age, I wonder if the big volcanic eruptions had anything to do with anything. That will take a lot of slow research.

One thing I have learned is that talking about global warming is like talking about religion or politics. People don't spend so much time talking to you as they do talking at you.