Considering Al Gore
[Not Dennis-related]
Al Gore is starting to look more and more like Jimmy Hoffa as the years go by and he gains a little weight. The best speech Al Gore ever gave was when he stopped challenging the 200 election, and not because I was "rooting" for Bush. I was, in fact, a very big Gore supporter in 2000 and viewed Bush _extremely_ negatively. But when the race tightened towards the end, Gore's stump speeches got sort of crazy and that, I think, turned off enough voters to cost him the presidency. If he'd campaigned in the final weeks by giving speeches that were similar in tone to his last one in December 2000, he would have won.
Of course, Gore faced a decision in late 2000 as to what to make of his political career. I think he chose wrong, drastically. Instead of building on the goodwill he had after the election (even adversaries admired his gracious last speech) and working practically on the concensus issue of pollution/global warming, Gore went way, way partisan. His once very sensible views on foreign policy got replaced by fervent anti-war stances popular with Democratic primary voters. And ultimately the crowing achievement of his wilderness years is An Inconveninent Truth, where Gore opts for pathetic scare tactics and dubious and sensational claims of an enviromental day of reckoning instead of sensible policy that would counter the great risk man-made global warming would present.
Gore's Oscar on Sunday night marked a culmination of this effort. There may even be another one coming when Nobel prizes are announced, and this will elevate his status in the world. But his status in America is irrevocably flat, and it's much, much lower than it was in 2000.
I watched Oscar highlights of Gore with sadness. I miss the old Gore, a guy with real promise to advocate progressive principles from the center and to achieve progressive ends without resorting to populist themese. That guy is gone forever. In his place we have a bloated Jimmy Hoffa of the international union of man-made climate change. Maybe it is toward a good end. But it's a lot less than what Gore could have been.
Al Gore is starting to look more and more like Jimmy Hoffa as the years go by and he gains a little weight. The best speech Al Gore ever gave was when he stopped challenging the 200 election, and not because I was "rooting" for Bush. I was, in fact, a very big Gore supporter in 2000 and viewed Bush _extremely_ negatively. But when the race tightened towards the end, Gore's stump speeches got sort of crazy and that, I think, turned off enough voters to cost him the presidency. If he'd campaigned in the final weeks by giving speeches that were similar in tone to his last one in December 2000, he would have won.
Of course, Gore faced a decision in late 2000 as to what to make of his political career. I think he chose wrong, drastically. Instead of building on the goodwill he had after the election (even adversaries admired his gracious last speech) and working practically on the concensus issue of pollution/global warming, Gore went way, way partisan. His once very sensible views on foreign policy got replaced by fervent anti-war stances popular with Democratic primary voters. And ultimately the crowing achievement of his wilderness years is An Inconveninent Truth, where Gore opts for pathetic scare tactics and dubious and sensational claims of an enviromental day of reckoning instead of sensible policy that would counter the great risk man-made global warming would present.
Gore's Oscar on Sunday night marked a culmination of this effort. There may even be another one coming when Nobel prizes are announced, and this will elevate his status in the world. But his status in America is irrevocably flat, and it's much, much lower than it was in 2000.
I watched Oscar highlights of Gore with sadness. I miss the old Gore, a guy with real promise to advocate progressive principles from the center and to achieve progressive ends without resorting to populist themese. That guy is gone forever. In his place we have a bloated Jimmy Hoffa of the international union of man-made climate change. Maybe it is toward a good end. But it's a lot less than what Gore could have been.
posted by Michael at 9:50 AM
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