It’s really funny how Al Gore gets people worked up:
Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has sent a letter to former U.S. vice president and environmentalist Al Gore saying he should as a crusader against global warming go vegetarian. It says the meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s the problem with being an idealist: there’s always a better fanatic out there.
Of course, most of the recent press attention on Gore - such as the whole (way overblown) home power bill thing - is ostensibly about his Oscar win for “An Inconvenient Truth”, but in reality has nothing to do with the film. What it is about, is 2008. People expect him to run. Many Democrats are fervently praying that he’ll run, if for no other reason than to save us from a Hillary vs. Obama primary battle. When he picked up his Oscar, a lot of people expected him to use the Oscar pulpit to announce his 2008 run.
He’s not going to run.
I sympathize, guys. I’d love for Gore to run again. I’d love even more for him to win.
For his faults, Al Gore was actually one of our finest public servants of the modern American era. He got a lot done, starting with his instrumental work on the START nuclear disarmament treaties. He scored real points in environmental protection legislation. And despite the “invented the Internet” jokes, he played a significant role in the privatization of the Arpanet backbones, which made the modern Internet possible. He did things, showed up to work on time, kept it in his pants and did it all in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation. Gore’s exactly the kind of guy this country needs as President in 2008.
And there’s no way in hell he’ll run. When he says that he’s out of politics, he means it.
I’ve been a Gore fan for a long time. Part of why he was so effective in the Senate - I think, anyway - was because he wasn’t a born politician. He wasn’t the heartfelt political animal that Clinton was, didn’t get into it for the power or the hot chicks; he got into politics because his father expected him to. It was the family business. Since politics wasn’t where his heart was, he was able to get the job done without getting entangled in the petty ambitions that define the true wonks.
Thing is, Al Gore’s true calling is, and always has been, journalism. As a young man, he served as a journalist in Vietnam. When he returned home, he was a reporter for five years until the opportunity came to run for Congress.. and from 1976 to 2000, Gore was hopelessly embroiled in the political world. He wrote books, but Al Gore became the public servant that his father had groomed him to be.
By all accounts, his loss to Bush in 2000 - particularly that way - was devestating to Gore. He dropped out of sight for a long while and got his bearings. He wrote another book, made a film of it, and you know what? He’s finally the journalist he was always meant to be. As painful as the 2000 loss was for him, it set him free. And all indications are, he knows it - and has no plans to wear the shackles again.
In the next couple of years, we’re going to hear a lot about how Gore may decide to run. Don’t believe it.
