The Gore Reminder

Al Gore was interviewed on a CNN Global Warming special today, and yet again, it proved to be a heartbreaking reminder of how different our nation and place in the world would be if George Bush had not been given the Presidency by the Supreme Court.

Critics love to mock Gore because he’s not a blustering redneck-wannabe like Bush, because he doesn’t strut and smirk and pretend to be a working-class good-ol’ boy. They make fun of his intellect and deride his claim—which proves to be accurate—that he had a hand in starting the Internet, painting him as an annoying know-it-all. But recent history has demonstrated that a know-nothing President like Bush can do immense and lasting damage to our treasury, reputation, environment and democracy.

How utterly sad that instead of the dignified, articulate Gore—as wise, learned and measured a politician as I have seen in my lifetime—we have a ridiculous, obtuse, rude, ignorant, narrow-minded, angry and defiant loser in George Bush.

Bush has done virtually nothing constructive as President—increased AIDS funding to Africa (with strings attached to curtail use of condoms!)—and has done a thousand things to weaken and degrade a broad array of institutions and communities here and abroad. Watching Bush is like watching a sick joke, a phony cowboy with a phony accent trying desperately to distance himself from his blue-blooded, patrician, wimpy Yale-cheerleader past.

A Gore Presidency would have completely avoided the historic mess in Iraq, would have likely got the job done in Afghanistan, would have jump-started bold and broad initiatives to combat Climate Change, would have done a significantly better job in New Orleans (not the least of which because he would have given the FEMA job to someone capable instead of an inept crony), would never have put two extremist-revisionist judges on the Supreme Court, would never have allowed Big Business to write energy policy and rape the land (like the hideous mountaintop mining that has ruined vast areas of land in the Virginias), would never have encouraged torture or secret prisons or indefinite detention, would never have allowed unlimited spying on citizens, would never have made gaffe after gaffe on the world stage, would never have become an embarrassing international icon of ridicule and hatred.

How sad that cynical, dark-hearted hate mongers, neo-cons and wimps-trying-to-be-tough-guys like Charles Krauthammer (whose pathetic smear of Gore was featured on the same CNN show) would rather have as President a fool like Bush than a sage like Gore. How sad that so many Americans would rather vote for a beer buddy than a scholar. They get what they pay for—a President with wet brain, and policies and staff to match.

- JT Compton
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