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Right-wing pundits play doctor; diagnose Gore as "insane" (complaint by liberal media watchdog)
Media Matters for America ^ | 05/28/04 | David Brock

Posted on 05/29/2004 6:43:50 AM PDT by motife

Right-wing pundits play doctor; diagnose Gore as "insane"

Responding to former Vice President Al Gore's May 26 speech (sponsored by MoveOn.org and delivered at New York University), in which Gore called for the resignation of six top Bush administration officials, right-wing pundits seemed to read from the same anti-Gore script: resorting to satirical speculation about his psychiatric state -- in one case, attacking the speech itself as "hate speech" and, in another case, as eliciting "the biggest cheers ... from caves in Afghanistan and diehards in Fallujah."

Charles Krauthammer, on FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume, on May 26:

It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again.

(Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated Washington Post columnist, Time magazine columnist, and FOX News contributor. He holds a medical degree from Harvard and worked as a resident in psychiatry in the late 1970s before moving to Washington.)

Dennis Miller, host of CNBC's Dennis Miller, on May 26:

At one point I respected Al Gore, but I think he's lost his mind. ... I think he's gone daft because he's a sad little man now.

Mark R. Levin, conservative radio talk show host, as a guest on FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes on May 26:

He sounded like and looked like [televangelist] Jimmy Swaggart. He really did.

[...]

And half the country thinks he's [Al Gore is] a mental patient. ... They think he should go back to the dayroom he came out of.

(Mark R. Levin is the president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy group that has received millions of dollars in funding from right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, according to a dossier by Media Transparency: The Money Behind the Media, a website that tracks grants made to conservative organizations. Levin is also a contributing editor for National Review Online. His nightly radio show is aired on 77 WABC Newstalk Radio, which also airs conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. He has also been a frequent guest on Hannity's radio show, The Sean Hannity Show.)

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, on May 26:

Well, Al Gore is at it again. He just can't help himself, breathlessly attacking the president in a speech today. But will hate speech like this backfire on the Democrats? [text on screen: "Gore's Hate Speech"]

[...]

You know, Al Gore adds to the global warming threat today with his very own thermonuclear meltdown.

Michael Savage, on his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage Nation, on May 26:

We are all sitting here asking ourselves, was there lead in Al Gore's silver spoon, because of the obvious tilt across the river of sanity. He has definitely pulled his raft across the river of sanity, or he has taken the side of the enemy, there's no other explanation for what he has been doing.

(Michael Savage's radio program, Savage Nation, is syndicated by Talk Radio Network and is the third-largest syndicated radio talk show in the nation, reaching 6 million listeners per week. He is the author of two New York Times best-sellers, The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture and The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military -- both published by the conservative WorldNetDaily press WND Books. Savage hosted a short-lived televised version of his show for MSNBC, also called The Savage Nation, before being fired by the cable channel for referring on the air to a caller as a "sodomite" and saying that the caller should "get AIDS and die.")

John Podhoretz, in a column in the New York Post, on May 27:

[I]t is now clear that Al Gore is insane. I don't mean that his policy ideas are insane, though many of them are. I mean that based on his behavior, conduct, mien and tone over the past two days, there is every reason to believe that Albert Gore Jr., desperately needs help. I think he needs medication, and I think that if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely.

[...]

Gore's speech is the single craziest political performance of my lifetime, and I use the word "craziest" advisedly. The speech, at 6,600 words, was twice as long as Bush's address to the nation on Monday night. The indiscipline shown by the sheer endlessness of Gore's address is a reflection of the psychic morass in which he has become mired.

(John Podhoretz is a New York Post columnist, FOX News Channel contributor, author of Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane, and former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush.)

David Frum, in "David Frum's Diary" on National Review Online, on May 27:

Maybe a National Psychological Council would be a good idea after all -- and maybe it could start by advising this former senator, vice president, and two-time presidential candidate that he [Al Gore] ought to seek out for his own good a cool and quiet darkened room.

(David Frum is a contributing editor to National Review, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and a regular contributor to National Public Radio and to Great Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is also the author of the 2003 Random House release The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush.)

Barbara Comstock, in a column published on National Review Online on May 27:

Columnist Charles Krauthammer observed, "Looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again."

[...]

Outside of MoveOn.org, the biggest cheers for Gore must have been coming from caves in Afghanistan and diehards in Fallujah.

(Barbara Comstock was director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft from December 2001 until September 2003 and is currently a principal at Blank Rome Government Relations, where she serves "as a lobbyist and strategic communications specialist." She was director of research and strategic planning at the Republican National Committee during the 2000 election. According to the May 13, 1998, issue of The Hill, Comstock was a "close ally" of David Bossie while both served as aides to Representative Dan Burton (R-IL) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Comstock "also played a key role in [selectively] editing and releasing" controversial transcripts of former Clinton administration official Webster Hubbell's prison conversations -- the incident for which Bossie was fired from the committee.)

James Taranto, on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page website, OpinionJournal.com, in his "Best of the Web Today" column, on May 27:

An Associated Press account of yesterday's speech notes that "Gore, who served in Vietnam, predicted greater problems for America's involvement in Iraq." The AP apparently means to suggest that Gore suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder, since the Vietnam reference is otherwise a complete non sequitur. But according to WebMD, "symptoms of PTSD usually occur within three months of the traumatic event." True, "they can occur months or years later" -- but three decades later?

We've got a better theory: Gore, in our view, has cracked under a crushing burden of guilt.

Linda Vester, host of FOX News Channel's DaySide with Linda Vester, on May 27:

Some pundits have said they thought he went off his meds.

Oliver North, as a guest on FOX News Channel's DaySide with Linda Vester on May 27 and on FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes that evening: They should check Gore's medications. [from DaySide with Linda Vester]

Somebody needs to check this guy's medication. This guy has got a problem. [from Hannity & Colmes]

(Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist and the host of the weekly FOX News Channel series War Stories with Oliver North. North is also the author of a book -- based on his tour in Iraq embedded with Marine and Army units during Operation Iraqi Freedom -- titled War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom (Regnery Publishing, November 2003). The book includes a free DVD featuring an hour-long FOX News Channel episode of War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to a Publishers Weekly review, FOX shares copyright on the book.)

Sean Hannity, co-host of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes -- in response to guest Oliver North's comment "Somebody needs to check this guy's medication. This guy has got a problem." -- on May 27:

He's [Al Gore's] really nuts. Rush Limbaugh, host of the nationally syndicated radio show The Rush Limbaugh Show, on May 26:

I guess we can't -- get those -- those naked pyramids just not in the national interest to Al Gore. [laughter]

[...]

I mean, it says -- it says a lot about Gore. It says he's perverse, that he would be argue to go confer greater rights on those who seek to murder millions of Americans and calling for even tougher actions to seek them out and destroy them before they destroy us.

What really troubles me about these photos, above and beyond what's in them, is how they're being used to undermine our war effort.

— N.C., S.M., K.N., & A.S.

Posted to the web on Friday May 28, 2004 at 10:05 AM EST

Copyright © 2004 Media Matters for America. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: algore; davidbrock; loonyleft; twinkie
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To: NYCVirago
"Funny how David Brock missed this comment [from Dowd]"

He also seems to have "missed" the convoluted psychoanalysis of conservatives last year from leftist academics at UC Berkeley. It was widely trumpeted in the liberal media, but not a peep was heard from David Brock on that one.

61 posted on 05/29/2004 10:38:34 AM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: GulliverSwift
His ranting and screaming and sweating showed that he was either...

Poor Gore. His sweating really completes the crackpot/preacher effect.

62 posted on 05/29/2004 10:39:39 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: motife
Right-wing pundits play doctor; diagnose Gore as "insane"

I bet those same pundits could multitask and fit Algore perfectly with a new pair of shoes also.

63 posted on 05/29/2004 10:41:41 AM PDT by EGPWS
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To: Bonaparte; NYCVirago

Wasn't there also an article (NY Times?) not too long ago talking about how the President's speech patterns... I vaguely recall some kind of link to "rigid" thinking, inability to compromise, just tons of psychobabble. It was a whole diagnosis. Anyone else remember this? The liberals have made these kind of criticisms a cottage industry... now the whiny little crybabies don't like it when it's applied to them?


64 posted on 05/29/2004 10:43:53 AM PDT by GraceCoolidge
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To: GraceCoolidge
I missed that one, but I certainly wouldn't doubt it. Odd, though, that the NYT would be decrying the intrusion of personality disorder into the public square. Case in point: Their own employment and promotion of the ill-qualified, Jayson Blair, whose bizarre behavior in college was a matter of record when he was first hired.

Then there's the publisher himself, who drags his stuffed teddy to company conferences...

65 posted on 05/29/2004 11:09:11 AM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: motife

What a total jerk. Why does not he just go away?

Maybe, Tupper will get him the straight jacket he so baddly needs.


66 posted on 05/29/2004 11:14:11 AM PDT by jws3sticks (Hillary can take a very long walk on an equally short pier, anytime, the sooner the better!)
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To: KangarooJacqui

Out in the marsh reeds,
a loon cries in pain,
as if having remembered
something better forgotten.


67 posted on 05/29/2004 11:17:35 AM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: GraceCoolidge; Bonaparte
I remember both those studies you are talking about. And don't forget the psychiatrists' report in 1964, saying that Barry Goldwater was psychologically unfit to be president. Funny how Brock has such a selective memory when it comes to such things.

One other item -- the Times' article on Gore's recent speech ran on page A26. It seems even the Times thought Gore sounded a bit wacky; which is why they downplayed the speech, even though it happened in New York.

68 posted on 05/29/2004 11:21:05 AM PDT by NYCVirago
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To: NYCVirago

The big diagnosis of Bush as having a mental problem was written up in 2000 by liberal writer Elizabeth Drew. She all but declared that Dubya is dyslexic. It was a very influential article among liberals and formed their intellectual pattern of what they perceive him to be like.


69 posted on 05/29/2004 4:20:03 PM PDT by GulliverSwift (The only difference between the Al Gore of 2004 and 2000 is that the current one has nothing to lose)
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To: BlazingArizona

LOL!


70 posted on 05/29/2004 4:30:23 PM PDT by stands2reason ( During the cola wars, France was occupied by Pepsi for six months.)
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To: motife
The biggest mystery is why Al Gore dropped out of the race. No one has satisfactorily explained why one week he goes to China and the next week he drops out of the race.

After all, he did win the popular vote. One would have thought he was the natural candidate.

71 posted on 05/29/2004 4:34:14 PM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past
Liberals can always dish it out but they can never take it.

True. An unspoken liberal mantra is "I have freedom of speech, so you shut the f*ck up."

72 posted on 05/29/2004 4:41:18 PM PDT by Vision Thing (Liberal democrats & the mainstream press: Passionately defending the Enemy since the 1960s.)
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To: G.Mason

Dick Morris, "Clinton Abetting/Here's How Bush Should Do It/Toe Suckers"



add to that "dog collar wearing," that is, if my memory serves me right, but I may have this dick confused with the wife of his former boss


73 posted on 05/29/2004 5:29:15 PM PDT by Taffini (Simone is French. She hates everything.)
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To: Taffini

Darn it..looking at that "list " in the article, you know, there really IS a VRWC...


74 posted on 05/29/2004 5:30:48 PM PDT by ken5050 (Ann Coulter needs to have children ASAP to propagate her genes.....any volunteers?)
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To: motife

What the hell was with the towel and the mopping up of the sweat? Can you imagine clinton watching that and thinking, he's 'effing crazier than I thought? He's embarassingly unbalanced, and to be honest w/you we could stand a lot more of his stark relief tour. What a pear-shaped loser!


75 posted on 05/29/2004 5:36:14 PM PDT by AlbionGirl
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To: secret garden

He only ran for president twice. He decided not to in 1992, probably because he was afraid to run against Clinton.


76 posted on 05/29/2004 5:37:52 PM PDT by hg23
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To: badgerlandjim

Hey, cut Al some slack... could be
he's under slumlord stress again be-
cause of rental unit toilet problems...



Funny you should mention that. I was cleaning the bathroom floor today and I looked at the toilet and thought of Gore.... and his inability to get a toilet fixed. If it had been a Bush toilet they would still be talking about it.

AlGore=Slum Lord.

Maybe he got confused when someone called him Lord and now he thinks he is royality?


77 posted on 05/29/2004 5:48:15 PM PDT by Taffini (Simone is French. She hates everything.)
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To: ken5050

what is a vrwc?


78 posted on 05/29/2004 5:49:49 PM PDT by Taffini (Simone is French. She hates everything.)
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To: motife

Al Gump is the poster boy for a very real disease that all liberals have, in varying degrees.


79 posted on 05/29/2004 5:56:41 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
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To: hg23

He started the run but dropped out early. He did attempt to be president 3 different times.


80 posted on 05/29/2004 9:21:12 PM PDT by secret garden (School's out!)
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