I admire Gore in many ways - especially his knowledge of science and his concern with civil liberties. But he's also insufferable. And can you imagine how more pompous he's going to be now? Andrew Sullivan
Is it Gore the man who is insufferable, or is it rather Gore the creature fabricated by the Maureen Dowds and Margaret Carlsons and Ceci Connollys and Chris Matthews? (See here and here.) What relation has that image to the real Gore? Or is Gore's insufferability proportional to his having been proved right about almost everything Sullivan and his ilk have been proved wrong?
I wrote this about Gore in May 2006 in a post entitled Whom the Gods Would Destroy. In it I quoted a 5/26/06 column by Paul Krugman:
Why, after all, was Mr. Gore's popular-vote margin in the 2000 election narrow enough that he could be denied the White House? Any account that neglects the determination of some journalists to make him a figure of ridicule misses a key part of the story. Why were those journalists so determined to jeer Mr. Gore? Because of the very qualities that allowed him to realize the importance of global warming, many years before any other major political figure: his earnestness, and his genuine interest in facts, numbers and serious analysis.
And so the 2000 campaign ended up being about the candidates' clothing, their mannerisms, anything but the issues, on which Mr. Gore had a clear advantage (and about which his opponent was clearly both ill informed and dishonest). . .
Since 2000, we've seen what happens when people who aren't interested in the facts, who believe what they want to believe, sit in the White House. Osama bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is a mess, New Orleans is a wreck. And, of course, we've done nothing about global warming.
But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we—by which I mean both the public and the press—ready for political leaders who don't pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That's a test of national character. I wonder whether we'll pass.
So let us have more of that kind of insufferability. Contrast it with the Republican candidates running now. Gore has been presented as phony weirdo by the media since at least 2000. But are there greater phonies on the political scene right now than Giuliani, Romney, and the biggest one of all, Thompson. The others are either fools (McCain) or unelectable. And the biggest con job of all time was the idea of the callow Bush as a strong, steady leader. So enough of the moderates buy into the narrative that the media dish up. Rather than voting for insufferable phonies like Gore they wind up voting instead for real, authentic men--strong, steady leaders like George Bush.
It's a con Sullivan bought into completely and promoted vociferously. Until he couldn't anymore. Big deal. Everybody sees through the con now. The problem lies in that he and so many others didn't see through it when they should have. That he and so many others saw Bush as the real thing and Gore as the insufferable phony. That they'll probably do it again and again and again. Isn't that really what Sullivan's insufferable remark about Gore indicates? Has he really learned his lesson?
And now we're going through this ridiculous charade where the current crop of Republican candidates is taken seriously. I realize they are getting the scrutiny Bush never got, but that any of them have even a shred of credibility can only be accounted for by what our ceremonial democracy requires: We have a two-party system. One of the parties is Republican. Its candidates must be taken seriously no matter how ridiculous they are and no matter how discredited and shameful the agenda of their party.
And Gore? Is he unelectable? Probably. It's too bad, because realistically, no matter what his limitations, he's about as good as it's going get in terms of someone who could move things in a more positive direction. I might actually feel a glimmer of optimism if a Gore/Obama or Gore/Edwards ticket could somehow become a reality. But the Nobel Prize will not change the puditocracy's perception of him as a crazy who went off the reservation. It doesn't matter that the the real crazies were the one's who stayed on the reservation, or that the reservation conventional wisdom was disastrously, hopelessly wrong. It doesn't matter that if there are to be any sane solutions, they will be found somewhere off the reservation. Because all the real crazies in the pundit class who were so disastrously wrong still have their jobs and have not lost their credibility. And that's why Sullivan, still reflecting the chronically distorted cw of his class, can still think of Al Gore as insufferable.
Sunday Update: For those of you who think there is any significance to the nine significant errors in "An Inconvenient Truth," Robert Parry puts Britain's Judge Michael Burton's ruling about the errors in the film into perspective. Bottom line: typical right-wing nonsense that seizes on debater's tricks to distort, confuse, and discredit, which the MSM nevertheless takes as credible. Parry takes the more probing look which the MSM seems incapable of doing. See also Somerby on the WaPo article.