Is Al Gore a hypocrite? Yes. An opportunist? Absolutely. Of course he is. We all are. Our political system is rigged up in such a way that it would be absolutely impossible to rise to the top if you were not. Al Gore was vice president for 8 years during which time he did absolutely Nada for the environment, Jack shit , zilch.
But does that, or the fact that he owns shares in this zinc mine or that petrolium company, invalidate the work he has done since? Does it invalidate the message? Al Gore, the man, does not matter. That which lies deep down within the confines of his soul is of no consequence. Let him sort that out with his god when he dies. A hundred years from now nobody's going to care if Albert Gore was a good man. Eventually it is only the actions of a politician that are of meaning, and right now Al Gore is spreading the truth about the greatest threat our planet has ever known.
Personally I believe that Al Gore is essentially a good man, but a weak man a selfish man and a vain man. Like many liberal politicians he became involved in politics for many of the right reasons, but then as it always does the ego and the thirst for power took over. At every junction on the jagged pathway to the top he took the wrong option the easy option, the sell out option, all the while deceiving himself that it was all for the greater good, if he could only get just a little bit more power that he could redeem himself, atone for his sins.
Had he beaten me in the 2000 election (well he did, but you know what I mean) if he had become president at that time he may perhaps have continued along this spineless path, probably doing the odd piece of good here and there, but generally ducking and dodging the spears and arrows of his own conscience as he strove to consolidate and enhance his own power, in all likely hood improving just a little in the dead duck days of his second presidency ( if he had lasted that long) and would have spent the rest of his days wrestling with the inner demons which told him that he could have done so much more.
But when he lost that election (well he didn’t really, but you know what I mean) a mightily powerful thing happened to Al Gore. In the days and months that followed he came to a terrible realisation. If he had followed his heart, if he had done and said just a little more of what he believed and a little less of what he judged to be politically expedient at the time then a whole lot of those people who went with Ralph Nader and the Green party might have ended up voting for him and all those hanging chads in Florida wouldn’t have mattered.
When I look at Al Gore I see a man who’s had a life changing experience. A man who’s sold his soul to the Devil and got jipped, short changed, geshwisled. It isn’t easy to look at yourself in the mirror and know that if only you had been a better man you would have gotten what you wanted all along. I see a man who’s cursed himself a thousand times and sworn a thousand oaths that he won’t sell out what’s in his heart again. And that is why I believe he would make a good president. Al Gore is a snake, con man and a phoney. Of coarse he is, we all are. But having once paid the price for silencing those inner screams of truth I genuinely believe he is just a little less likely than all those other bleating liberals to do it again.
