Run, Gore, RunFrom Oslo to Washington?
Posted Friday, Oct. 12, 2007, at 12:36 PM ETToday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to educate the public about global warming. In a "Fighting Words" column last month, Christopher Hitchens argued that a Nobel Prize would boost Al Gore's chances of winning a presidential bid and wondered eagerly if Gore would run. The column is reprinted below.
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I am occasionally asked why it is that so many Europeans display reflexive anti-Americanism, and I force myself to choose from a salad of possible answers. One of these is the resentment that I can remember feeling myself when I lived in England in the 1970s: the sheer brute fact that American voters who knew nothing about Europe (and cared less) could pick a president who had more clout than any of our elected prime ministers could exert. America could change our economic climate by means of the Federal Reserve, could use bases in Britain to forward its policies in Asia or the Middle East, and all the rest of it. Americans could also choose a complete crook like Richard Nixon, or a complete moron like Jimmy Carter, and we still had to watch our local politicians genuflect to the so-called Atlantic alliance.
Nowadays, this bothers me slightly less than it used to do. (George Bush at his worst is preferable to Gerhard Schröder or Jacques Chirac—politicians who put their own countries in pawn to Putin and the Chinese and the Saudis.) But I can still feel the old pang gnawing away. And I can still sense the European instinct for revenge or, to phrase it another way, for the chance to influence U.S. politics in return. One of the ways in which this influence can be exerted is the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. (And not just the peace prize, either; the so-called "prize" for literature has been awarded quite openly to figures who earned their reputations as enemies of the American imperium, just as the laurels bestowed on Jimmy Carter were accompanied by explicit remarks from Scandinavia to the effect that this might put a spoke in Bush's wheel.)
On Oct. 12, we shall hear again from Oslo, and I will be very surprised indeed if the peace prize is not awarded to Albert Gore Jr. (Don't ask what a campaign against global warming has done for "peace"; that would be like asking what Mother Teresa or Henry Kissinger had ever done to reduce global conflict. The impression is the main thing.)
So, and if I am right, the former vice president will then complete a year in which An Inconvenient Truth has been awarded an Oscar and he has authored a best seller. Roll it round your tongue again: an Oscar, a best seller, and a Nobel Prize in the space of 12 months or so. Not bad. And meanwhile, the field of Democratic candidates looks—how shall one put it?—a trifle etiolated. Sen. Clinton may have succeeded in getting people to call her "Hillary" and to have made them feel resigned to her front-runnership, but what kind of achievement is that? Sen. Obama cannot possibly believe, and doesn't even act as if he believes, that he can be elected president of the United States next year. John Edwards is a good man who is in politics for good reasons, but there is something about his populism that doesn't quite—what's the word?—translate.
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Remarks from the Fray:
Is it possible that people have already forgotten what a completely awful candidate Al Gore was? When GW first ran for President, the overwhelming consensus was that Gore would crush him. It was painfully clear from the git-go that Bush was a man of absolutely no accomplishments, that he couldn't put three words together into a coherent sentence, and that the few things he did have to say were wildly out of the mainstream of American political life.
Nonetheless, Gore managed to lose to that buffoon. The fact that the election was close enough for the Supreme Court to inject itself into the election does not forgive Gore for being so incompetent that he was able to lose to the worst Republican Presidential candidate since WWII. Longing for this self-absorbed bloviator to run for President makes you either a fool or a Republican.
--tclune
(To reply, click here.)
I am generally in agreement with Christopher Hitchens, and while I wish Al Gore had become President in 2000, I rather think it is too late for him now. Gore has a certain Churchillian quality in that he is a better statesman than he is a politician. He is not a particularly good campaigner, we should remember, and that seems to be an even more essential quality than ever before. Personally, I think Gore might have been a very good president and a competent war leader, to boot. And while I agree with Hitchens about President Bush in comparison to the perfidious cowards in Europe that he mentions, I believe Gore would have been superior to him in nearly every important respect. Now we shall never know. I suppose there is a natural tendency to want to have the chance to go back and redo past errors. I suspect he would be better than the current crop, of candidates, too, but I just don't think he is electable. Even so, I must admit, I'd vote for him, again, if given another chance.
Finally, notwithstanding his less than stellar understanding of science and some notable hyperbole in his An Inconvenient Truth, I do think he has done the world a great service by making concern for the environment more mainstream from a political perspective. It is difficult to say where he can do the most good at this point, but it might well be as a champion of the environment. On the other hand....
--ojeeves
(To reply, click here.)
There's a generally accepted tenet of democracy that the biggest issue looming for politicians is always the next election. To some extent this is considered a good thing; we have democratic elections specifically so these guys know they're always accountable.
However, voters always like to hear that things are great, that it's morning in America, that the lockbox is stuffed with cash forever, that there are no consequences to driving SUVs, and that it doesn't matter how fat they get because we have the best health care in the world.
Problems that won't blow up into calamities before the next election cycle are best avoided. The "culture war" type issues are great for both parties, because, no matter what side the listener is on, their position doesn't really require them to do anything. The candidate says something fiery for or against, and the base pats themselves on the back for having the moral courage to stand up for whatever it is they believe in.
Meanwhile the Social Security gravy train has jumped the tracks and is screaming toward a cliff, and the glaciers are melting. But if there's still time to do something about the problem, that also means there's still time to do nothing, and the voter bases of both parties are generally in an agreement on the "something or nothing" issue.
I'm a little too young to remember Gore as a Congressman or a Senator. I would not be surprised in the least to discover that he was a sterling example of all the things that are wrong with legislative democracy. It's a rare trick to get to Congress without being compromised. But the Vice Presidency was good for Gore, and I admired that he tried to campaign on a pragmatic, long-term reform to Social Security in 2000.
Hell, one of the few things I admire about Bush was that he tried to touch that third rail in 2004, and though his scheme was kind of half-baked, that was one of the few times I've felt sympathy for him when he got burned.
But Gore has taken his exile as an opportunity to really take action on an issue that would bury any elected official, and by some weird miracle, people have responded to it. I doubt Al Gore will manage to save the world, but he tried seriously, I believe his passion, and he wasn't running for anything when he made that movie.
Senator Clinton's main credential seems to be her name and her fundraising ability. Senator Obama's biggest accomplishment to date is his distinction as an author of several books about himself.
Senator Edwards is peddling some kind of fiery populism about two Americas, even though his weekly haircut costs more than many Americans' monthly rent.
Against that field I'll take the guy with the integrity. I hope he runs.
--Crawford
(To reply, click here.)
(10/13)