Gore on the Floor

Of all the potential candidates for President in '08, there's really no one I'd rather vote for than Al Gore. (I had to throw that "potential candidates" line in there, because there's quite a few people I'd prefer to vote for in a general Presidential election than Al Gore. I just don't think Hugo Chavez or Stephen Colbert have any chance of winning.)

To get an inkling of why I feel like Gore's the ideal Democratic candidate, aside from the fact that he once appeared on a "Saturday Night Live" sketch in which he exchanged pot jokes with the guys from Phish, look no further than this interview from GQ. (Surely a first for Crushed by Inertia linkage!) It's brought to you courtesy of The Carpetbagger Report.

First off, let's get the obligatory denial out of the way.

So if you decide to run, do you think we would see the Al Gore from the movie? Or the Al Gore from 2000?

Well, I don’t plan to run. I don’t plan to run. And I don’t expect to run.

Yeah, right. He's just doing this interview to sell a few extra DVD's. Al Gore frequently goes on publicity tours to hawk merch. Remember the epic 30-state summer tour promoting Sane Planning, Sensible Future?

How many times a day does somebody ask you this?

Well, I’m doing a lot of interviews and it’s on the list of questions. For every one of them. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that people think enough of me still in that world to ask that question. It’s true that I haven’t, uh, gotten to the point where I am willing to completely rule it out for all time. But, that is really more a matter of the internal shifting of gears. I’m not making plans to run again.

But you’re not ruling it out?

Uh… no. [smiles]

If you truly don't expect to run for president and some journalist asks you if you're going to run for president, you say "What? Oh hell no." You don't say, "Well, at this present time, I'm tempted to say that I can't see myself potentially expecting to run any time in the immediate future."

Do you know if President Bush has seen the movie yet?

Well, he claimed that would not see it. That’s why I wrote the book. He’s a reader.

Face.

What page do you think he’s on?

I would encourage him to see the movie and read the book. I wish that he would.

Don’t you find it appalling that he won’t?

Well, you know, he’s probably no more objective about me than I am about him.

Is that...Was that just a double-face? Did Al Gore just doubly-face the President?

Do you feel that we would be safer today if you had been president on that day?

Well, no one can say that the 9-11 attack wouldn’t have occurred whoever was president.

Okay, so he's still thinking politically and says the diplomatic thing here, but check out what happens when the reporter presses him just a little bit.

Really? How about all the warnings?

That’s a separate question. And it’s almost too easy to say, “I would have heeded the warnings.” In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail. And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way. It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, “Well, you’ve covered your ass.” And never called a follow up meeting. Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it. And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job. And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off! And I don’t know why—honestly—I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay? I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage? And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing. I understand how it could sound that way. [Practically screaming now] But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!

Um, yeah. Exactly. Can we just elect this guy right now, in some sort of elaborate Schwarzeneggerean recall election? Get me Scalia on the phone. He's not busy worrying about the environment, he has time to talk to me for a few minutes...

(The best part of California electing this goony movie star doofus to public office, by the way, is that it birthed the neologism 'Scwarzeneggerean'. I suppose it could have already existed: "a manner of behavior composed of or indicating a childish bratty chauvanism; of or relating to something large and obnoxious." But now that he's genuinely a politician, the word has clear and definitive meaning.)

Back to Al Gore:

But how do you really feel?

(cracks up)

What’s the nicest thing you can say about George Bush?

He made a terrific appointment of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Ok, Is there a second best thing?

I can’t think of another one, actually.

There you have it...The elusive triple-face.