No wonder conservatives are apoplectic - Gore's fortunes rise as the president's plummets

[babylonsister]

Al Gore: the anti-Bush
No wonder conservatives are apoplectic - Gore's fortunes rise as the president's plummets.
October 13, 2007



When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, conservatives reacted with apoplexy. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, conservative bloggers and other Republican faithful denounced the prize as a fraud.

You might wonder why they care so much -- Gore, after all, is obviously not going to run for president, and even some conservatives now concede that global warming is real. The answer is that Gore's triumph is a measure of George W. Bush's disrepute.

Indeed, in the political culture, Gore's role is as a negative indicator of the president's standing. For all the talk of a "new Al Gore," there's nothing new about the man. His public reputation is almost entirely a function of Bush's.

The high point of Bush's prestige came in the months after Sept. 11, 2001. As Bush put it in a year-end interview: "All in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." (It certainly was, if you could put aside the 3,000 American deaths, which Bush apparently could.)

That was also the moment when it was most fashionable to ridicule Gore. He was described as "goofily bearded" or "sulking." Democrats were publicly declaring they were glad Bush, and not Gore, was in the Oval Office.

Gore, the thinking went, was too intellectual and lacked Bush's gut-sense understanding of good and evil. A staunch Gore backer explained his relief at Bush's victory thusly: " may know too much." At the time, this trait was seen as far more problematic than knowing too little. A poll in late 2001 found that 76% of Americans preferred Bush over Gore as a war leader.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-chait13oct13,0,1267031.column?coll=la-opinion-center

[Bumblebee]

1. We have an American Nobel Prize winner and our so-called president is

yet to pick up the phone and personally congratulate him. Where's an outrage over that in the media? None I have seen so far...

[Warpy]

3. Right, even Reagan made congratulatory phone calls

either Stupid was too drunk to do it or his rotten upbringing is shining through once again.

White trash with money. That family proves its origins every single day.

[Bumblebee]

5. Sore Loser, isn't he?

AP: Asked if Bush planned to telephone congratulations to Gore, as he does to Americans who achieve signal honors in many fields, Fratto said he knew of no plans "to make calls to any of the winners."

I am pretty sure he did in previous years -- now he is going to ignore them all (much to their relief, I am sure, and yet...) because that would mean calling Gore too.

[sellitman]

6. This question should have it's own post.

Just saying.

[Bumblebee]

7. I thought about that but then decided not to add another thread

since there are so many. :) This is a good issue for letters to the editor.

[DURHAM D]

9. I think Bush is afraid to call.

I honestly don't think Al will take the call.

[Bumblebee]

10. Al has class. He would sigh, roll his eyes -- but still take it...

[madmom]

20. Ah yes but he DID call Barry Bonds, and we all know that's WAY more significant!

[Cha]

34. bushit is too sick with

jealous rage to make the call and our "media"..they're sick, too.

[Me.]

2. One Is Trying To Save The World

The other is doing his best to destroy it

[Cirque du So-What]

4. My, how the worm has turned!

I take some pride in having seen through Chimpolini and the neocons all along, but I take greater satisfaction in seeing the great mass of Americans open their eyes to the farce of Commander Codpiece.

It's been a delightful day since Al Gore won the Nobel prize, in no small part due to the schadenfreude in which I revel over the 'sour grapes' that the RW is presently espousing. Let that bile be especially bitter in their throats as they lament the diminished stature of their beloved Little Boots!

[aquart]

8. They truly are graceless, mean-spirited, nasty trolls.

Who raised these monsters?

[Stargazer99]

11. Excessive money, privilege and the belief that anything money

does can't be evil (just business like).

[Cronopio]

18. "Who raised these monsters?"

Satan.

[MissWaverly]

13. oh, how sweet it is, Gore is recognized as the "winner"

As the poem goes "Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'r succeed...the distant strains of triumph break, agonized and clear." as Emily Dickinson wrote. They selected a man who is president in name only against the wishes of the American people and now the man they vilified and smeared is seen as a hero to the world.

[aquart]

27. Tee hee.

[MissWaverly]

31. I think there is a very powerful blow to bushco

they have to smear the other guy & project all their failings on to him, which is why they keep claiming their opponent is
a loser, well, Al Gore is not a loser and never was.

:-)

[Glorfindel]

12. It's wonderful, wonderful...Al Gore gets the Nobel Peace Prize

an Emmy, AND an Oscar (and almost surely a Grammy next year) and B*shit surpasses Nixon, Hoover, Coolidge, and Harding as the worst president ever to occupy (NOT be elected to) the office. Maybe the worst possible president. :toast:

[Richard D]

14. "All in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me."

How on earth did the American people forgive a statement like that.

[Nostradammit]

30. I haven't been able to yet.

Don't know if I ever will.

[Cronopio]

15. "Suddenly, open debate looks better than absolute clarity."

There's something profoundly wrong with a society where a basic intellectual process like public debate is allowed to fall in and out of vogue. Who can guarantee that Americans won't fall out of love with thinking again tomorrow?

Go thou and sin no more, Jonathan. You carried the water for the pro-Bush chorus for a time after the 2000 election, and you should have known better.

"The defensiveness of Gore's critics comes because he is the ultimate rebuke to Bush."

No, the incompetence of the Bushies and its karmic fallout is the ultimate rebuke to them. Gore didn't have to do a thing to help that process along. In fact, he benefited from standing apart from it. Gore didn't make Bush screw up the Katrina response, Junior and his cronies in crime did that all by themselves.

"His denunciation of Bush as a captive of business interests -- ridiculed as dime-store populism -- has proved a telling critique of this administration ..."

It didn't take an Einstein to figure that out, just a little intelligence and integrity. It just proves that it doesn't take that much effort to be considered prescient in a political idiocracy.

"But his standing in history will probably have less to do with anything he said or did than with Bush's record."

From the viewpoint of idiots. Those who assess Gore based on his own stated principles and actions, rather than how he looks compared to others, will know better.

[Jade Fox]

21. Excellent post.....

The extent to which people in America stopped thinking (and were proud of it!) after 9/11 never ceases to amaze. And indeed, when will it happen again?

Blind faith in leaders is a child's world view, and it is amazing how many Americans were eager to crawl back into the nest and give a bunch of self-proclaimed Daddies free reign when they were instructed by the government and a spineless press to do so. Now those Americans are sad and sorry. Well, what the f**k did they expect?

[Grandrose]

16. Excellent article! (K&R)

Live well. It is the greatest revenge. Which Gore personify.
Thanks for posting.
I so want to believe the Repubs and the anti-Gore MSM/pundits are suffering!:evilgrin: :kick:

[Peregrine Took]

17. The giant and the worm and the whole world can see the difference. Isn't it

grand?

[quiet.american]

19. "76% of Americans preferred Bush... as a war leader." -- never understood that.

Have NEVER been able to understand how Bush came out of 9/11 smelling like a rose, especially when the footage of him sitting frozen in the Florida classroom was widely available.

[zalinda]

22. The polls were pushed! And they didn't call me!

[frogcycle]

28. there is no reality

polls then and now were tainted.

the 24% who actually DO think he is not a blithering idiot and an evil scumbag are loud and highly visible. the 0.1% for whom he is the front man for their cabal don't vote in polls, they just make them up. Just like the mythical votes in the Diebold machines. They take those 24% and triple them, throw away most of the saner people's opinions, and then tell us that we are in the minority.

[MasonJar]

23. Al Gore is a patrician and a man of intelligence and verve and compassion.

A great man like Gore does not need approval of the Rush Limbaugh's of this world. He knows his worth and he is attempting to save the earth and its creatures "great and small." Noblesse oblige!!!! George Bush is spawn of elitist white trash. Money cannot obfuscate the lack of character found in W and his siblings. They have no concern for anyone beyond their meager band of cronies. George ruined himself by himself because he is not a very nice person...and a dull and dumb "not nice person" at that. Why would anyone want to have a beer with him? I'd be bored to tears.

[awoke_in_2003]

26. "Why would anyone want to have a beer with him?"

so one could crack him over the head with the empty bottle :)

[Blue_Tires]

24. k+r

[Skittles]

25. doesn't say much for America that they fell for bush's act

he has always beens so damn phony - I will never understand how anyone could have voted for such an obviously incompetent twit....I don't care what the media role was, why couldn't they see it for themselves?

[Joe Bacon]

29. How do YOU feel, Sandra Day O'Connor????/

You and your pals Slappy Thomas, Fat Tony Scalia and KKKenedy illegally installed the BIGGEST ASSHOLE of ALL TIME into the Presidency.

You and YOUR PALS overthrew Al Gore.

How do you sleep at night, Sandy?

How do you sleep knowing YOU did this?

You and YOUR PALS sold America out.

How do you sleep?

[Prophet 451]

32. Interesting that they describe Gore as a "radical tribune"

A "tribune" was an elected official in ancient Rome. While all other offices of state were filled by the partisan classes, the tribune was the only one that was elected from and by the plebs and the powers of the office, in some circumstances, rivalled the consuls. The system was eventually corrupted, of course but during the era of the Roman Republic, tribunes acted as an important safeguard for the people.

Gore actually isn't especially radical. His proposals on the enviroment are commonplace in green circles. Rather, Gore serves as the Churchill of the Green movement, it's organiser and motivator so describing him as a "radical tribune" is only half accurate.

And I thought the beard suited him.

[Cha]

33. Any "Gore backer"..

who thought it was better to know too little than too much wasn't really a Gore backer and if he/she were then they were too obtuse to see the big picute that it takes to be a real leader like Gore.

ol' bushit would probably still say..it's been a good year for laura and him..rove just forgot to change the programing.

[Doctor_J]

35. I don't understand why they refuse to admit that the resident of the WH

is a stupid, ignorant, mean, unaccomplished drug addicted loser who's never earned an honest dollar is his life. Face it, for God's sake, and then move past it.