Christian Science Monitor

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2001

OPINION

Al Gore's disappearing act

By Godfrey Sperling

WASHINGTON

What is Al Gore up to these days? Is he in hiding? Is he still licking his wounds? Or is he merely resting and enjoying a respite from the political wars, with the intention of eventually rising up from the battlefield to fight once again?

A short while back, I tried to lure Mr. Gore - a part-time journalism teacher at Columbia University - out of his politically inactive status by inviting him to be our guest at a Monitor breakfast. He has already shared bacon and eggs with us a dozen times over the years, four times during his first term as vice president. But I got nowhere.

Joe Andrew, recent Democratic chairman, encouraged me to issue the invitation. He said it was time for Gore to break his silence and the breakfast would be just the place to do it. He gave me an address where I could reach Gore and, in addition, said he personally would urge that Gore accept.

Mr. Andrew is and has been a loyal Gore supporter. And I gather he thinks Gore has earned another shot at the presidency, and shouldn't wait too long before indicating his interest in seeking the 2004 nomination.

But what did I hear from Gore? After a week or two of waiting, a female voice came on the line and merely acknowledged that Gore had received the invitation "but that he isn't doing anything like that yet." A "thank you" from the caller, and that was it. I understand that others trying to entice Gore back into the Washington political circle are also being politely rebuffed.

Could it be that an embittered Al Gore is leaving politics? I don't believe it - although I'm sure he's thought of doing so. Gore, like his father, is a political animal; he may move away from politics for a while, but he'll be back.

But one must ask: How successful would a Gore comeback effort be - one in which he would once again seek the presidency?

Well, he won the popular victory last time, and millions of Democrats still think he was cheated out of the electoral win by the Supreme Court decision. That in itself would seem to be enough to earn Gore another chance. Indeed, it's arguable that Gore should be able to build on his last election performance and score a decisive victory next time around.

But I've talked to enough prominent Democrats since the election to conclude that Gore is headed for strong opposition from within his own party if he once again seeks the presidency.

The argument against Gore is worded like this: "With the good economy we should have won. Gore just wasn't a good candidate."

Gore will, indeed, have his party supporters like Joe Andrew. But other influential Democrats have told me that they are "seeking a new face," an attractive newcomer to the presidential wars - maybe a senator like Evan Bayh of Indiana or John Edwards of North Carolina.

As I see it, Gore's main problem in the past election was that he couldn't shake himself loose from President Clinton. It's arguable that next time around, presidential candidate Gore could be far enough away from the Clinton years to be viewed on his own.

But Gore must also somehow learn to be himself if he is to be a successful presidential candidate. Take this last campaign: On stage and, particularly in debate, Gore too often looked pompous and aggressive and sounded whiney. (Remember his audible sighs?) He simply wasn't very likable.

The Al Gore whom I've known for years is a particularly warm, relaxed, likable fellow. More than anything else, Gore has a wonderful sense of humor - which is always on display at breakfasts he has attended. He joshes, he pokes fun; he's one of us. And I've seen this Al Gore so often that I'm convinced it's the real Al Gore.

Here I want to add that several of the breakfasters have made similar observations about Mr. Gore.

So I simply don't know what happened to Gore on the campaign trail. It was almost as though he was trying to show the public how important he was, how smart he was. Remember when he seemed to be playing the part of Mr. Know-It-All in one of the debates with Bush?

If Al Gore reenters politics and can somehow be the same old Al Gore we breakfasters have come to enjoy, he can still go far. If he can't, he'd better stay at Columbia.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

Answers

I think this article, although it makes some valid points, is mainly an exercise in wishful thinking. Al Gore could well be avoiding the spotlight because he is humiliated over having run a simply awful campaign. You bet the Democrats want new faces!

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

It's occurred to me that he might even have been relieved. All his life, he's been reared to be President. What pressure! Okay, he ran, he did his best, he lost. Now he can do what he wants to do. I don't say I believe it but it's a fairly cogent thought. Okay, maybe it's wishful thinking! Gawd knows I don't want to hear his droning voice and sighs for another year or two before another election.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

I hear he is hiding because he is fat.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

National Review

In Defense of Al Gore

The former vice president is content to shun the limelight.

By Nick Schulz, politics editor of FOXNews.com

April 24, 2001 12:15 p.m. l Gore deserves some pity. Longtime readers of NRO may be surprised to see those words. But there they are.

After losing the 2000 election, Gore returned to private life for the time being and, unlike his old West Wing sidekick, has kept the low profile that is in keeping with the proper tradition and custom of those who depart the Executive Branch.

But Gore's reticence to venture out in public is unacceptable for lots of folks, many of whom Gore used to consider his allies. And they are letting him know it, loud and clear.

In a column titled "Calling Al Gore," Richard Cohen blasts the former vice president. "Where the Hell are you?" squeals Cohen, knocking Gore for being MIA on the environment.

Salon's Anthony York trashes Gore, too. He mocks Gore for having done little more than banter about "meta-narratives with his students at Columbia Journalism School" since leaving office.

In the New York Times, George Packer sneers at Gore: "When President Bush broke his campaign promise to cap carbon dioxide emissions and then shrugged off the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, Al Gore ... was apparently too busy mending fences in Tennessee to say one word about an issue that once inspired him to write an entire book."

And Newsweek's Howard Fineman belittles Gore as a "political afterthought" and says, uncharitably, that "he's lying fallow, like exhausted farmland."

Some have even taken to pointing out how fat the good ship Gore has become. Fineman dubs him "Taftian" (as in William Howard, not Robert). The New York Daily News titled a piece on Gore's expanding girth, "Hey, Hey Fat Albert."

Gore's gorging is now international news, as London's Daily Telegraph reports, tongue-in-cheek, that Gore is no "political lightweight."

All of this attention paid to someone who so clearly wants no attention is, at first look, peculiar. But something a little deeper is at play, here.

The problem for those partisans attacking Gore for stepping back from the political fray — for refusing to engage in incendiary rhetoric about how the Republicans "stole" the election — is that Gore seems at peace with the outcome of election 2000 and seems happy to take some time off. It is his critics who can't seem to let go, and they feel the need to question the legitimacy of Bush's presidency at every turn.

For example, Packer describes Gore to Times readers as "the candidate who won the popular vote by half a million." Fineman reminds his readers: "Gore won the popular vote by 538,000." In Cohen's tirade, he dismisses Bush as the "technical winner" of the election (as if there's some other, more meaningful kind).

Those reminders are petty and (at this point, certainly) tired barbs. But to many, they seem eminently reasonable.

In the wake of the Florida fracas, a quick look at some of the headlines of the Nation or the American Prospect or the New York Review of Books reveals just how unhinged the intellectual Left has become:

"The Road to Illegitimacy"; "How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida"; "Florida's 'Disappeared Voters"; "Deconstructing the Election"; "None Dare Call it Treason"; Disfranchised by the GOP"; "Still A Thief: Why the media recounts in Florida don't change a thing"; "The Lynching of The Black Vote"; "What Makes People Think Bush Has Won?"

During his concession, the Electoral College vote, the counting of the electoral votes in Congress (overseen by a gracious and even funny Gore), the inauguration of George Bush, and the peaceful transfer of power, Gore has been thoroughly decent, dignified, adult, thoughtful, tactful, cheerful, decorous, even patriotic. He is clearly at ease with what has transpired.

Today, many of those most frustrated with the outcome of 2000 are simply taking some of their frustrations out on a man who seems perfectly content to put it all behind him. His critics should do him a favor. Leave him be.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001