Posted on 07/02/2007 12:03:53 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
That Al Gore's 2000 presidential candidacy was treated unconscionably by most members of the mainstream media is not really arguable by sentient beings. The very idea that a candidate like George W. Bush — extremist, incompetent, unprepared for office, addicted to cronyism and incapable of admitting even the simplest human error — could have been held by so many reporters to be a better choice for President than the two-time Vice President, Senator, Representative and environment and nuclear weapons expert, to say nothing of his central role in the Clinton Administration's successful two-term presidency, would be laughable were its consequences less tragic.
And yet in that election, the media made Al Gore out to be a liar because so many reporters chose to misreport his remarks or take them out of context. To top it off, they made a joke of their maliciousness, mocking Gore for alleged mendacities that were largely the results of their carelessness and deliberate misrepresentation.
Gore has since moved on to become not only one of America's most powerful progressive voices but also, when it comes to the dangers posed by climate change, something of a secular prophet. "An Inconvenient Truth" has turned out to be perhaps the most influential political argument by a private citizen since Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." The book version of the movie and his newest tome, "The Assault on Reason," are runaway bestsellers. Gore is a contender for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. And time has more than borne out the harsh assessments he has offered of George W. Bush over the past seven years, for which pundits like Charles Krauthammer and Joe Klein called him, literally, crazy.
And yet within the hermetically sealed confines of the American MSM, little has changed. In his new book Gore offers a complicated and depressing indictment of our present predicament, focusing on the dishonesty of our politics and the toothlessness of our tabloid-obsessed media. Resting as it does on reasoning derived from the likes of Jürgen Habermas and other philosophers, environmental scientists and even neuroscientists, the book could not help but trigger the MSM's reflexive anti-intellectualism, to say nothing of their loathing of its author.
Witness the Washington Post, whose reporters in 2000 ran with Republican Party press releases purporting to be Gore's own words. Amazingly, the paper's recent treatment of Gore has been even more nakedly hostile, sometimes bizarrely so. First out of the gate was Governing magazine editor Alan Ehrenhalt, writing in the paper's Sunday Book World, who chose not to focus his review on the work itself but instead offered up a stream of attacks on Gore's personality. Presenting no evidence, Ehrenhalt complained of Gore's "consistent ability to express fundamentally reasonable sentiments — often important ones — in ways that annoy the maximum possible number of people." Gore's movie, he said, was "smug and self-centered" — again, no evidence. True, he added that "much that he writes seems to be on the mark." Too bad it was written by an author with "an incurable habit of calling more attention to himself than to the ideas he wishes to communicate." Evidence? Zip.
Next came Post news columnist Dana Milbank. After attending a Gore speech he observed, "Even if Gore were speaking before a sellout crowd at Verizon Center, he would still be the smartest guy in the room. He reminded his listeners of this repeatedly last night," in a manner Milbank found "all too frequently, pedantic." With considerable condescension, Milbank added, "Not that you'd doubt Gore on these points, but, just in case, there are 273 endnotes," as if offering readers access to one's sourcing — as any serious nonfiction author save Bob Woodward is expected to do — is another example of what a self-satisfied smartypants we're dealing with.
Not long afterward the Post's Outlook section published yet another assault on Gore, this one by Weekly Standard editor Andrew Ferguson. Astonishingly, Ferguson began his screed by asserting, "You can't really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book.... It's a sprawling, untidy blast of indignation, and annotating it with footnotes would be like trying to slip rubber bands around a puddle of quicksilver." I say "astonishingly" because, as the annoyed Mr. Milbank pointed out in the same newspaper, the book contains 273 source notes spread across twenty pages right there in the back. So common was the anti-Gore animus that it apparently blinded everyone involved with the piece, thereby allowing Ferguson to humiliate himself as well as the newspaper with an accusation so amateurish it dissipated with a mere glance at the book.
While I have focused on the Post, it's not as if the rest of the media distinguished themselves — or diverged from their circa-2000 scripts. At ABC News, Diane Sawyer badgered Gore about his political ambitions, Jake Tapper compared the book to a Michael Moore missive and Terry Moran portrayed it as an act of vengeance. On the New York Times op-ed page David Brooks mocked Gore as a "Vulcan Utopia[n]," and Maureen Dowd focused, laserlike, on crucial features like Gore's waistline and his author photo while terming the ex-VP a "presidential flirt," a "righteous tease" and a "high-minded scold." And in a sentence that may rival Ferguson's for the Pulitzer Prize for Irresponsible Imagination in the Service of Personal Obsession — were one ever to be established — Dowd wrote that during his Diane Sawyer interview, Gore "almost seems to want to sigh and roll his eyes." Never mind, dear reader, that Al Gore neither sighed nor rolled as much as a single eyelash. To Dowd, writing in the newspaper of record, he "almost seemed to want to," and that's good enough.
So give George W. Bush credit. He may lie about counterproductive wars, destroy our reputation abroad, ignore Katrina victims, approve torture, blow up our balance of payments, ignore scientific evidence, undermine our Constitution and turn the Justice Department over to a collection of ideological hacks... At least he doesn't make Maureen Dowd think he wants to roll his eyes.
Yes, I can’t understand why they were so dismissive of someone who both invented the Internet and was the real-life subject of “Love Story.”
That Al Gore's 2000 presidential candidacy was treated unconscionably by most members of the mainstream media is not really arguable by sentient beings. The very idea that a candidate like George W. Bush — extremist, incompetent, unprepared for office, addicted to cronyism and incapable of admitting even the simplest human error — could have been held by so many reporters to be a better choice for President than the two-time Vice President, Senator, Representative and environment and nuclear weapons expert, to say nothing of his central role in the Clinton Administration's successful two-term presidency, would be laughable were its consequences less tragic.
Yes, it REALLY says that.
I guess I was out of the country when the media were attacking Al Gore and supporting George Bush.
Eric must be smoking some powerful stuff.
WOW! What SAVAGE criticism!
Dana Milbank, DNC bumlicker, unleashes both barrels on Gore and calls him...the smartest guy in the room!
I wish BUSH could get such softballs as these!
I’m not sure if he (Eric) requires immediate medical intervention, or if he is already overmedicated as a result of past interventions.
He’s probably a goner either way.
How truly fitting.
As I once noted in a book I wrote, ''World-class morons are scarcer than you might like, if we exclude politicians from consideration.''
This turkey almost makes me want to retract that statement. Gawd, what an imbecile!
If there was any doubt this is nothing but a big whine from someone who has an Al Gore autographed photo on his desk...
The Adlai Stevenson of his time.
And as for Mr. Alterman...
???
Eating their own?
You forgot to mention that he created the Internet...
Al Gore invented the Internet! It's true! He said so himself! Just listen...
Al Bore invented the Internet.
Hey!!! Eric!!!
Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend!
Geez, Alterman, if you love the guy that much, marry him!
Al Gore hero worship at its finest. This is some of the most pathetic liberal drivel I’ve ever read.
Nuclear weapons expert? That's a new one on me
But I do know that traitor Bill Clinton had the doors thrown open for Chinese, Russians, other foreigners at Los Alamos
He forgot "Physics Expert" too.
While in the Senate, Algore used to sit in the hallways and leaf through a college physics textbook while pretending to read it. Other Senators and staffers could tell he was looking up to get at people's reaction more than he was actually reading the book.
Gore did it to try and fool people. He finally stopped when some friendly Democrat senators told him he looked like a complete fool.
Gore's college roommate, Tommy Lee Jones, attested to Gore's stupidity.
Do you have any references to this?
Thank you for mentioning "Silent Spring", an earlier fraud.
I’m sure it would be useless to tell this writer that the federal Government was NOT to be the first responder during Katrina, panties on the head is not torture, a 10 year projected surplus was only just that made up by a dishonest adminstration during a bubble economy.
Clinton’s “successful” 2 term Presidency left this country’s economy slowing and heading toward recession, this nation vulnurable to terrorist attacks and our enemies’ were NOT being killed and their abilty to do this country harm was not being diminished.
G.W. Bush is the first President to have earned a MBA, he was a jet fighter pilot, the successful owner of a major league baseball team, a successful 2 term Governor of one of our largest states, Texas.
He has successfully lead the USA out of what could have been a devastating recession, has led the world in the beginnings of destroying our terrorist enemies.
Oh yeah, this morning, July 2, it was 48 degrees here in Sidney, Ohio. There’s lots I don’t sgree with about Bush, $5 billion annually from the federal government to study climate change is at the top of the list. If you’re a scientist and want some grant money are you going to question climate change?
Bush’s biggest mistake is trying to “get along” with the liberal, socialist Democrats. These people need to be defeated, nothing less.
Eric Alterman is actually a staunch conservative with a wry and extremely biting sense of sarcastic humor....This whole piece is really a put-on.
I laughed so hard that I needed to clean the vomit off my screen.
Hey Al, it’s July 2 and there was FROST on my windows this morning. Where’s my global warmth?
is this one of those fake articles, it can’t be real...nobody is that stupid to say that Al Gore was treated unfairly in 2000.
What’s really really sad is that Jorge Bush actually IS smarter than Al Gore.
Cabrera was indicted in 1983 by a federal grand jury, on racketing and drug charges. In 1988, he was accused of managing a continuing narcotics operation. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges and served 54 months on prison .After his visit to the White House, Cabrera would be sentenced to 19 years in prison for transporting 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the US.
The media just wasn’t supporting algore successfully enough. The proof is algore lost.
>>>Eric must be smoking some powerful stuff.
Al Gore would know where to get it.
Gore better watch it, Alterman sounds like a stalker :-)
Pretty much my take on Mr. "No Controlling Legal Authority" aka Mr. "I-Was In-The-Bathroom-Because-I-Drank-Too-Much-Iced-Tea"
Revisionist history at it’s best!!
The room must have been filled with morons! Anyone referring to Al Gore, the guy who flunked out of divinity school and law school, as smart must be about of room temperature IQ himself.
I’m sorry but I stopped reading at the words Eric Alterman
Sentient beings -- obviously excluded himself (J. Alterman, the author).
Laugh riot, indeed. The line above starts it out in a rollicking manner and just doesn't stop...
To use Eric's own words:
Evidence? Zip.
I think that the clintons led alphagore to believe that “the cheat” (the clintonian machine) was IN for him. They did this to insure that he didn’t “distance himself” TOO much from them (squeeling on them) during hillary’s run for NY.
Of course, the clintons tricked alpha (oh-I’m-shocked), and he lost. What really made me believe this was the way Gore was CERTAIN he won. Like a kid who had stolen the teacher’s answersheet before a test, he KNEW he had to have ACED the thing. Like a kid who cheated, he said, “Count ‘em again! Count ‘em again!” He KNEW HE WON BECAUSE THE CLINTON’S LET HIM BELIEVE THAT THEY CHEATED FOR HIM.
How could he have not known that they’d screw him too?
Wasn’t he also some massive chicken farmer? And let us not forget the “new” findings that he uses more utilities than anyone could imagine (Earth in the Balance my A**). Gore is a shemeful disgrace and this writer has has been under water in the kool-aid pool too long.
shemeful=shameful
Do you mean “No controlling legal authority” Al? Or “I did’nt know they were Monks” when I picked up the checks Al?
Carolyn
Eric alterman, complete and total commie. And he actually managed to get arrested at a press conference.
My husband went to college (Univ. of the South, Sewanee, TN) with AlBore’s cousin. The cousin said Al was nothing but a sniveling, lying brat. He couldn’t even carry his “home” state...if he had, he would have gotten the electorial votes he needed to win.
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