This is long, but it's one of the best things I've read about Al Gore, the media, and Presidential campaigns.
Well Crafted Phoniness-Jeffrey Feldman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/wellcrafted-phoniness_b_68331.htmlThe fate of Al Gore offers a window into our condition as a country and the future we are doomed to repeat--soon--if we do not wake up to this problem and fix it.
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Journalists play a crucial role in our political system, Herbert is telling us, and the fact that journalists by-and-large chose the 'barbecue companion' over 'intelligent, thoughtful, and talented'--and then did it again four years later--has had profound consequences in real terms: loss of life, collective wealth, and a general lack of peace and well-being that now poisons the entire world. Gore's Nobel Prize should lead everyone to wonder what kind of world we would be living in, today, if journalists had only showed the 'collective maturity' of 12-year-olds or, heaven forbid: educated adults.
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A foul-smelling reality that hangs in the air this week, most of us understand that even in a time of war, impeding economic collapse, inevitable health crises, and a global climate crisis already upon us--were Gore to step again into the Presidential ring, he would again be eviscerated into submission for how he speaks, dresses, and eats--issues of no significance to anyone.
Gore's Nobel Prize shines an unflattering light on America in general and our political culture in particular. It reveals a media-driven American politics driven that still prefers beating good ideas and leadership to death and rolling around in the mess than turning to the future with an interest in understanding what John Dewey once called the relationship between things.
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This country has developed the bad habit, Herbert reminds us, of choosing 'well-crafted phoniness' as Presidential instead of talented, informed talent. And that is a habit that we do not seem particularly determined to break: