VICTORY PARTY UNDER THE SLIDE!

Fifty years from now, Al Gore is going to be regarded as a hero and one of the greatest American politicians never to park his ass behind the Oval Office desk. Seriously. Even if the United States never reverts to the mindset it once held -- that substance and policy matter -- it will be impossible to denigrate the man once he's out of the public realm the way people do it essentially to his face now.

How is that Gore is so loathed by the nation's elite? I don't think "loathe" is too strong a word here -- it's obvious that the pundit class absolutely hates him. His personality is kind of boring, sure, but he is a moderately skilled politician. You don't get two terms in the U.S. Senate, two terms as Vice-President and a term as President-in-Exile without having some reasonable modicum of political acumen, and standing to Bill Clinton, the most skilled politician of his generation, for eight years will make anybody look not so great by comparison.

Consider the noise that has sprung up about news organizations -- primarily the New York Times -- all but retracting their reporting during the march to war in late 2002. At the time, a significant minority opposed military action against Iraq, and that minority was growing with each passing day. The Judith Millers of the world breathlessly repeated the stories handed off by the Ahmed Chalabis of the world, but the evidence on the ground continually failed to match the grandiose tales. At the same time, George Bush was rushing a vote on military authorization to take advantage of the political air surrounding the mid-term elections. The most essential question that didn't get asked in any of the right places was this: How might an attack on Iraq affect the unfinished and ongoing war in Afghanistan? Do we have the resources to effectively fight two wars, one guerrilla and one TBD? If we alienate our allies by invading Iraq, will it cost us morally and logistically in Afghanistan? The reason those questions weren't being asked is because our revered opinion-makers ridiculed and rebuked anyone who dared ask them. Just ask Al Gore, who made the following remarks in a speech on September 23, 2002:

Nevertheless, President Bush is telling us that America's most urgent requirement of the moment - right now - is not to redouble our efforts against Al Qaeda, not to stabilize the nation of Afghanistan after driving its host government from power, even as Al Qaeda members slip back across the border to set up in Afghanistan again; rather, he is telling us that our most urgent task right now is to shift our focus and concentrate on immediately launching a new war against Saddam Hussein. And the president is proclaiming a new, uniquely American right to preemptively attack whomsoever he may deem represents a potential future threat.

Moreover, President Bush is demanding in this high political season that Congress speedily affirm that he has the necessary authority to proceed immediately against Iraq and, for that matter, under the language of his resolution, against any other nation in the region, regardless of subsequent developments or emerging circumstances. Now, the timing of this sudden burst of urgency to immediately take up this new cause as America's new top priority, displacing our former top priority, the war against Osama Bin Laden, was explained innocently by the White House chief of staff in his now well-known statement that "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

Among his many rewards was this beauty from Michael Kelly of the Washington Post:

This speech, an attack on the Bush policy on Iraq, was Gore�s big effort to distinguish himself from the Democratic pack in advance of another possible presidential run. It served: It distinguished Gore, now and forever, as someone who cannot be considered a responsible aspirant to power. Politics are allowed in politics, but there are limits, and there is a pale, and Gore has now shown himself to be ignorant of those limits, and he has now placed himself beyond that pale.

Gore�s speech was one no decent politician could have delivered. It was dishonest, cheap, low. It was hollow. It was bereft of policy, of solutions, of constructive ideas, very nearly of facts�bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies. It was breathtakingly hypocritical, a naked political assault delivered in tones of moral condescension from a man pretending to be superior to mere politics. It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible.

The things Gore said turned out to be quite worth concern. So you might think that if Gore gave another big foreign policy speech after everything had gone pear-shaped, maybe the press would understand that Al Gore knows what he's talking about and is, indeed, the most qualified President we've had in decades. And you'd be wrong. He delivered a speech on May 26, 2004, in which he excoriated the Bush Administration for their total lack of planning for the aftermath of the invasion and occupation and for their unlawful abuse of prisoners, calling for the resignations of Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and George Tenet, among others.

The result? John Podhoretz called Gore "crazy" for giving a speech of over 6,000 words, when Bush's address (rebuffed by network TV) went only half that.

I am not kidding or trying to score a cheap rhetorical shot when I say that watching Gore rant and rave and scream and yell and lose all connection with reality, common sense and even proper comportment at this moment of great stress for the Republic, even his most passionate supporters should thank God that he was not the one whose hand was on the Bible on Jan. 20, 2001.

Charler Krauthammer said Gore had "gone off his lithium again." Media Matters found at least ten other references to Gore being insane or otherwise mentally imbalanced, from the highly sane likes of Dennis Miller and Oliver North, among others. (Boy, that Dennis Miller makes some obscure insane person look like some obscure sane person. Yuk, yuk, yuk.) The Daily Howler has been following this for a couple days, and I assume they will continue to do so. You can watch the whole speech here and then decided for yourself if the constant references to "ranting" and Howard Dean's Iowa speech are necessary in the context of a mostly calm speech that calls for numerous resignations. (Hint: the "ranting" stuff isn't necessary, but the Howard Dean references kind of are, since Dean's speech was actually not an angry rant, either.)

By the way, George Tenet resigned today.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:06:03:12:26