What’s breaking?
Al Gore is back, kids!
What? That is, so what?
With the release of the new and widely praised documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the media seems to have rediscovered former Vice President and 2000 popular vote victor Al Gore. Al Gore is back, and now he’s imbued with the zest, the headlines seem to imply. Or some such.
But it was the closing line of a recent Howard Fineman piece that I found most striking. Political strategist-turned-celebrity James Carville related the following to Fineman:
“The reason people don’t like Gore is that he has been right so damn many times.”
The briefest recent history of Al Gore ever
Al Gore took a lot of ribbing during the ‘90s. Much of it is par for the course for any vice president. We laughed at Dan Quayle because we believed him to be scary not-smart and we laugh at Dick Cheney today because, well, we’re mostly just scared.
Gore took his shots with some good reason. There was the notion that he claimed to have “invented the Internet.” This is silly, of course. But the truth is that Gore has been ahead of the curve many times. His passion, intelligence, and foresight had him out front on environmental issues (who’s laughing about the environment now? Perhaps a couple of Rush Limbaugh’s poker buddies, but that’s about it), the incredible transformative power of technology, and he was an early and outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.
Enter MySpace
Gore is now using MySpace – which, if nothing else, symbolizes the revolutionary power of online social networking – to create a digital buzz for “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film that soberly and earnestly lays out the impact of climate change. "MySpace has a unique ability to mobilize its community around an urgent cause," says Mr. Gore.
I’ve long thought that there will be a “Howard Dean of 2008” candidate, a person who harnesses the power of technology and the Internet to outmaneuver and outthink more flat-footed and traditionally-minded opponents. Dean was ahead of the curve in the early days of the 2004 presidential season because he understood that the Internet was an easy, cheap, and effective way to gather people, raise funds, communicate, and perhaps more than anything, provide an egalitarian platform in which “regular people” can express their voice and feel part of something larger.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Arch Conservative
What has Mr. Carville beeen smoking?
Right about what?
Inventing the internet?
Winning florida?
The earth spinning of it's axis thanks to global warming?
The real reason people don't like Al Gore is because he's an asshole.
2 - Bryan McKay
Arch Conservative, let's take a look at the things you claim Al Gore has been wrong about.
Inventing the internet?
I can't believe people are still bringing this up. That story was based on a misreading of a quote. Al Gore played an important role in organizing Congressional meetings to help promote the internet, which is more or less what he claimed. He never even used the word "invent."
Winning Florida?
Did he claim to have won Florida? I must have missed that one. It seems, however, that we'll never really know who really won Florida. For all intents and purposes, Bush won, but I can't even imagine that you, arch conservative as you are, would be able to refute the claim that the election in Florida was FUBAR in many respects. Maybe Bush would have still won, but something was certainly amiss.
The earth spinning of it's axis thanks to global warming?
The claim isn't that it's going to spin off its axis. Global warming would change the earth's axis. That doesn't mean it's going to go off cartwheeling into space. The idea that global climate change could change the earth's axis isn't so far out, by the way. It has happened before in history. Even the recent tsunami altered the earth's axis slightly (and shortened our day by three microseconds!).
3 - RogerMDillon
No, Arch, that's why people don't like you.
Gore spoke about leading the charge in Congress to fund the Internet's development, but why would you let facts get in the way when it's so easier to attack someone with lies?
Or you could do some research. Here's Vint Cerf, inventor of the Internet Protocol on June 14, 2000 during a live Internet forum hosted by Time Magazine:
"I'd like to clear up one little item - about the Vice President ... He really does deserve some credit for his early recognition of the importance of the Internet and the technology that makes it work. He was certainly among the first if not the first in Congress to realize how powerful the information revolution would be and both as Senator and Vice President he has been enormously helpful in supporting legislation and programs to help further develop the Internet - for example the Next Generation Internet program."
4 - Eric Berlin
Well said, Bryan. And I don't think Gore has ever inspired real "hatred," except perhaps with the most extreme right wing elements of the Republican Party. This very fact may play into a very interesting (yet hypothetical-at-this-point) Gore or Hillary debate.
5 - Arch Conservative
Gore is just another democrat sore loser with a bone to pick.
It must eat deep into his soul to know how beloved slick willie was among the heathen left and that they never loved him enough to deliver him the white house.
6 - Eric Berlin
Great quote, Roger!
7 - Dave Nalle
To give credit where it's due, I worked for Gore when he was 'inventing the internet'. It's a poor choice of words, but his Congressional Clearing House on the Future genuinely did help promote and smooth the way legislatively for the development of what we now know as the internet, not to mention promoting a lot of other new and speculative technology.
dave
8 - Eric Berlin
Yes, Arch, Gore is clearly still reeling from his 2000 loss in promoting a widely acclaimed documentary about the future of our planet.
9 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Sir Berlin, a pleasure to read as ever! marvellous format here, and the best author bio of all ever!
regarding this flickery, i think it's nice to see a politician makin the transition to motion pictures for a change. a motion picture about a man gives a lecture with slides, perhaps, but still.
10 - Arch Conservative
You honestly don't think he'd trade his little book in in a heartbeat if he could be in the White House right now Eric?
11 - Eric Berlin
I've no doubt that Gore still carries political ambitions but that in no way implies that he is a "sore loser with a bone to pick."
12 - Eric Berlin
Thanks very much Duke! I've gotten several compliments on the bio of late... who knew?
13 - RogerMDillon
It's a poor choice of words, Dave, because that's not what he said.
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
-March 9, 1999 during CNN's "Late Edition"
Arch, documenatries are movies not books.
14 - Dave Nalle
Right, Arch, because that IS a poor choice of words, since to be accurate Congress did not create the internet, and because it implies a more direct role for Gore than he really had. Though as I said before, of everyone in Congress he was certainly the most aware and involved at the time the internet was coming into existence.
Dave
15 - Jet in Columbus
It's beginning to sound like a bunch of ex-wives screaming about sins their husbands did years ago and long forgotten!
I'm glad I'm gay!
16 - Joan Hunt
Is he "serial"?
17 - Eric Berlin
totally cereal
18 - Arch Conservative
A poor choice of words that goes to actual meaning right?
That one instance that was a poor choice of words is excusable but Trent Lott's poor choice of words regarding strom thurmond isn't?
I think gore's poor choice of words speaks to his over inflated sense of self. I think he caught that disease from bill and hillary.
19 - JR
Facts:
(1) Al Gore/ Bill Clinton Defeated George Walker Bush in 1992.
(2) Al Gore defeated Gorge W. Bush in 2000.
Prediction
(1) Al Gore will beat Jeb Bush in 2008.
Conclusion:
Al Gore will be the only man having beaten all 3 Bushes.
20 - JustOneMan
JR...your fairy tales when EEEEEEEEEE Gore wakes up and finds out that it was all a dream...and he looses a second time...just like sorta loke the in the TV show Dallas "who killed JR" dream sequence...right JR or is it JO!
21 - JR
There is only one visonary in this country. The name is AL GORE! Neocons - move to Mexico -- if they let you in. Bush is making a big fence on border. Flee the country before the prosecutors get you -- and while Bush-Fence is not up yet. Prosecutors will get you -- like they got your uncles at Enron.
22 - Eric Berlin
A confluence of factors, including the "conservative fatigue" I mentioned in my last piece, make Gore a very interesting candidate to take a look at for '08. The more he can stave off thinking/acting like a "candidate," the more attractive he looks.
23 - JustOneMan
JO,
Visionary??? That bloated feckless, spinless hypcirtical AL Gore..son of Al Gore Sr. who
voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
participated in a 74 day filibuster to delay and weaken the legislation.
proposed an amendment to the Civil Rights Act that would have kept federal funds flowing to schools that defied court desegregation orders. It was defeated by a vote of 74-25. 23 Democrats and 1 Republican voted for it.
Al Gore whis is wasting millions of gallons of fuel flying his bloated ass to a film festival in France???
24 - JR
Al Gore is coming like a hurrycane. Swiftboating is not going to work. Diebolding elections is not going to work. Choicepointing voters is not going to work. Run out of country you neocons. America needs patriots and not cowards and treasonists. Your disdain for our constitution has cost us dearly. You are out of luck!
25 - Arch Conservative
Fact:
JR lives in candyland if he thinks Al Gore won in 200 and actually has a shot in 2008.