Real pleasure to hear Gore speak what’s on his mind
The last temptation of Al Gore
Boy, it would be fun if Al Gore changed his mind and ran for president ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ fun for the voters, anyway. Imagine a candidate whose pre-election book is devoted in large part to an attack on the media for waging war on reason. Politicians, it is often said, never win by attacking the media. That’s simply not true. Conservatives have been attacking the media for decades, to good effect from their point of view. Their intimidation sometimes worked ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ go back to the coverage of the 2000 Florida recount if you want to see media bias. When intimidation fails, they declare inconvenient facts to be merely “liberal” opinions. It’s delightful to see the critique coming from the other side. Gore’s book released Tuesday, The Assault on Reason, is about “the strangeness of our public discourse” as mediated through television. He thinks the Internet may revive the art of reasoned argument that has been lost in our obsessions with “Britney and KFed, and Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.”
I’ve been following the Presidential beauty pageant for some time now. While Republicans engage in their hypocrisy-a-thon, ruminating over who can fellate the Far Right more effectively, the Democrats haven’t exactly bowled me over.
I’ve thought long and hard about endorsing a Democrat, but the reality is that it’s just far too early…and the candidate I’d want to endorse hasn’t even announced yet. Al Gore hasn’t said whether he will or will not run, but it’s nine months before primary season begins. With his experience and name recognition, what’s the rush? Why subject yourself to the process any longer than absolutely necessary?
Right now, it’s looks as if Gore has no intention of throwing his hat into the ring…and why should he? Running for President mean subjecting oneself to a maelstrom of media coverage, rumor, innuendo, half-truths, and just plain lies and propaganda. Ideas (a lack of which seems not to be something Al Gore suffers from) tend to get lost in the Sturm and Drang. Why would any sane person want to subject themselves to that this early in the game?
And let’s face reality here, shall we? Though everyone from Mike Gravel to Ron Paul seem to be running for President, I see no one offering anything more than tired platitudes and the promise of a better tomorrow…whatever that means.
The instant Gore announces, IF he announces, he will, in my mind at least, becomes the best and most electable Democrat. Al Gore is someone who can appeal to both the far-left and the far-right wings of the Democratic party, as well as those who would consider themselves centrists. With eight years in the White House as Vice President under his belt, it’s not as if he can be faulted on his experience.
I’ve just started reading The Assault on Reason, and I’ve got to say that Gore has a lot on him mind…which is more than can be said for King George the Worst © .
In addition, Gore is the only candidate, announced or otherwise, talking seriously about global warming. Here’s a man who’s demonstrated an impressive degree of intellectual depth, and he speaks in terms of problems AND solutions. Yes, Gore’s an adept politician- how else would he have gotten this far?- but he’s someone willing and able to deal with people on both sides of the ideological divide.
It’s entertaining to talk to Gore these days because he’s so clearly enjoying himself. (That’s probably why he won’t run for president.) During a 40-minute telephone interview Monday, he did not speak as if there were focus-grouped sentences dancing around in his head. Nor did he worry about saying things that some consultant would fret about for weeks afterward.
For example, when Gore is asked if any of the Democrats running for president were changing the system he holds in such low esteem, he pulls no punches. “They’re good people trapped in a bad system,” he says, “and I think it’s the system that needs to be changed and I don’t see them changing it.” The campaign dialogue so far, he says, has not been “very enriching or illuminating” in “either party.” But, no, that doesn’t mean he’s going to run, though he never completely shuts the door. It’s part of the fun he’s having.
He ascribes the failure to have a full-throated debate on Iraq back in 2002 ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ when he spoke out against the looming war, to much nasty jeering from the right ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ to the administration’s decision to politicize the issue before the midterm elections, but also to “meekness” and “timidity” in both “the legislative branch of government” and in “the press corps.”
“A lot of people were afraid of being accused of being unpatriotic,” he says. “One of the symptoms of this problem ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ the diminishing role for reason, fact and logic ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ is that what rushes in to fill the vacuum are extreme partisanship, ideology, fundamentalism and extreme nationalism.”
If the Bush administration came to mind as you read those words, Gore wouldn’t object. Historians who need a catalogue of what went wrong after, oh, Dec. 12, 2000, the day of a certain U.S. Supreme Court decision, will find it all in his book.
Al Gore is a man who could be justifiablly bitter. Who among us wouldn’t be if the same thing had happened to us? After all, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © , with the help of the Supreme Court, stole the 2000 Presidential election out from under him. Gore received more votes, and yet lost because he and his campaign weren’t able to outmaneuver the Bush storm troops in Florida. The results of the past six-plus years speak for themselves…and should serve as vindication for those of us who voted for Gore.
Would things have been different under President Al Gore? Let me count the ways. Would we enbroiled in a drawn-out clusterf—k in Iraq? Would we be dealing with an Administration that wants to save our rights and liberties by killing them off? No, Al Gore wouldn’t have prevented 9.11- it’s unlikely anyone could have- but you can bet that if we were fighting a war against terror under President Al Gore, things would be different. We’d be chasing them where they live…and, since they weren’t in Iraq, fully 3400 of our sons and daughters would likely still be alive.
My hope is that Gore will decide to run again, if for no other reason than he deserves better than to be remembered as the man from whom the Presidency was stolen. Al Gore deserves to have the opportunity that was stolen from him in 2000. The question, of course, is whether or not he still wants it…and who could blame him if he doesn’t?
WE DESERVE BETTER. We deserve to have a man with the integrity, intelligence, and vision of Al Gore in the White House.
Hmm…I promised myself that I wasn’t going to endorse a Democrat this early. I think I just broke that promise, eh?
