…I fear that I’m losing my objectivity where President Bush and Cheney are concerned. Not much surprises me anymore. I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to make room for a new outrage.
(This interview appears in the current issue of a new Harvard alumni publication called 02138.)
Incidentally, I received in the email yesterday (from Carolyn Kay) a piece by Brent Budowsky entitled “If Gore Wins the Nobel Peace Prize.” Since I’ve been thinking, too, about that possible eventuality, I read Budowsky’s article with interest. It was my hope that I’d find it worthy of posting here. But as I read, I felt compelled to pass on it, for it struck me as merely an exercise in wishful thinking.
Here’s one essential passage from the piece:
From the moment his award is announced through his speech in December accepting the prize, Al Gore will be the most influential living American in defining the terms of our national debate.
From the immediate surge of media attention until the aftermath of Gore’s acceptance speech there will be a profound surge of international and national attention to what Al Gore stands for, and what he has done.
I’d love to believe that is what would happen, but from what I’ve seen of the American media and how they cover our reality, and what I’ve seen of the American people and how they respond to the revelations of good and evil, I just cannot envision the response Budowsky presents.
In terms of “If Gore Wins the Nobel Peace Prize,” it was my thought early in this year that this would be the ideal moment for Gore to move toward a possible run for the presidency, or at the very least to make his voice a trumpet call to confront the lies and crimes of the Bushites and their enablers.
But since that time, I have felt disappointed with the way
Gore has used his post-Oscar standing. Shortly after the Oscars, Gore
published his book The Assault on Reason. The interviewer in that 02138
piece describes that book as Gore’s “anti-Bush manifesto,” and so
indeed it is. But you’d never know it from the way Gore chose to speak
in his TV interviews about the book (of which I saw two or three).
In those interviews, Gore seemed to go out of his way to minimize that
aspect of the work which confronts the Bushites with their
depredations, and in so doing he also adopted that “old Gore” voice
with its smarmy quality that is not fun to listen to, and that does NOT
mobilize people for action. We’ve heard a different voice from Gore on
occasion the past couple of years, and had he drawn on that different
voice this year – with his honors and with the ever-larger platform and
ever-greater respect he enjoys – I believe he could have had an impact
on the national discourse.
Even if he remained steadfast about not running for president, Gore
could be – as I argued in my “It’s Got to Be Gore” series here earlier
this year – a powerful voice to awaken America from the thrall the
Bushites still hold with their lies and manipulations.
Perhaps had he used his Assault on Reason
interviews as a means to speak prophetically to America, the Bushites
would not still be in a position to cow the opposition and seduce a
substantial chunk of the American people with their patently bogus
arguments (the MoveOn ad as a supposed attack on the military, the
surge is working, and so on without end).
Gore has had a
chance to be a significant leader against this evil, even if he stays
on the political sidelines. But, as I said, he seemed last spring to go
out of his way to avoid that role.
Now he may again be catapulted onto center stage, freshly bedecked with
honor and stature. (I do believe that Gore WILL be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize.) Although Gore has neglected to lay the proper groundwork
for stepping forward and making optimal use of that opportunity, it is
not too late for him to speak up and say what America needs to hear and
to do so in the prophetic voice in which this country needs to hear it.
Al Gore is a human being, just like the rest of us. It is idiotic to expect that he will embody our homes and dreams. Since the 200o election no figure in american political life has been able to touch Al Gore's record. His was the strongest voice in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. His has been the srongest voice in opposition to the assult on human and civil rights by the Bush administration. His has been the strongest voice in calling for a return to rational discoursein American political life. Hew has been the strongest defender of the Constitution against the Bush led attack on the constitutional limits on Presidential powers. Finally Gore has almost singlehandedly generated public awareness of the single most important issue facing human life in the 21st century, that of man made global warming. And you think that Gore has not done enough, and that he is reverting to his old ways. Jesus Christ almighty! Where do you get off? You need ego reduction surgery!
He doesn't care a damn for the country. He doesn't care for anyone but himself and his own.
I took Gore's book apart and posted a solid critique here on AFP. http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2130/81/. Those who can't stand reading 3,000 words about an idiot and his book can read the conclusion below:
"When I was a young man, I found that going alone for two or three days into the vastness of the Arizona desert deepened my understanding of my self and helped me get along in the world. Countless others, better minds by far than my own, have realized personal growth through immersion in solitude. Jesus, for one, spent 40 days in the wilderness and came back preaching the long view: Repent,Ӕ he cried, for the kingdom of heaven is at handӔ (Matt. 4:17). Al Gore, by comparison, spent four years in the political wilderness after his Y2K defeat and now comes back preaching: The last two centuries have demonstrated the superiority of free market economies over centralized economies and the superiority of democracy over forms of government that concentrate power in the hands of a fewӔ (Assault, p. 100).
"There it is: Al Gore is incapable of the long view. One hopes for original thought and creative ideas from a mind like Gores as one hopes to walk on water. America was clearly wrong to elect George W. Bush president in the year 2000, and America was even more wrong to reelect Bush in 2004. On the other hand, America was right to reject Al Gore. For all heҒs a champion of environmentalism and technology, The Assault on Reason clearly shows Gore is not the man who could or would lead us to an American renaissance."
Writings 
In a recent interview, Gore said this:
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