Are Polar Bears Really in Trouble Due to Global Warming?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Difference of Opinion

One of the world's leading polar bear experts has been told to stay away from an international conference on the animals because his views are "extremely unhelpful," according to an e-mail by the chairman of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, Dr. Andy Derocher.

The London Telegraph reports Canadian biologist Mitchell Taylor has more than 30 years of experience with polar bears. But his belief that global warming is caused by nature, not man, led officials to bar him from this week's polar bear specialist group meeting in Denmark.

Taylor says the polar bear population has actually increased over the last 30 years. He says the threat to them by melting Arctic ice — illustrated by a famous photo taken by photographer Amanda Byrd — has become the most iconic cause for global warming theorists. The photo is often used by former Vice President Al Gore and others as an example of the dangers faced by the bears. But it was debunked last year by the photographer, who says the picture had nothing to do with global warming, and that the bears were not in danger. The photographer said she just happened to catch the bears on a small windswept iceberg.

Baby Talk

A former aide to John Edwards says the former Democratic vice presidential nominee is the father of his mistress' baby. The New York Daily News reports Andrew Young recently signed a book deal. His book proposal says that, contrary to public statements young made last year, he did not father Rielle Hunter's baby, but that Edwards did.

Young also claims to have discovered a videotape that shows Edwards and Hunter having sex. He says the pair also discussed what music they would play at their wedding should Edwards' wife die of the cancer she is fighting. It's all in the book pitch according to the report.

And Young says that before the affair became public, Edwards told him that then-candidate Obama promised to make him attorney general, if he didn't pick him as a running mate.

Left Turn

Finally, some left-leaning journalists are taking shots at each other for being too soft on the president in a debate on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday afternoon. Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post Sunday responded to a column by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, in which Milbank criticized what he called "stagecraft," between Pitney and White House officials.

Pitney was called upon last week by the president during his news conference. Reports suggest the White House coordinated with Pitney on his question from an Iranian blogger, about Iran's post-election uprising.

But Pitney says that when Milbank, "had a chance to ask Obama a question, he approached him in the hall during the campaign and asked him not one, but multiple questions about how he looked in a bathing suit."

Milbank shot back saying: "I have never worked in collusion with an administration."

— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.