Give Al Gore The Presidency Or He’ll Hold His Breath Until He Turns Blue

Give Al Gore The Presidency Or He’ll Hold His Breath Until He Turns Blue: The Washington Post gave Al Gore a big, sloppy Monica this week-end in their Sunday magazine. I thought some of the article was interesting so I wanted to offer up a few quotes along with some commentary. The article started like this…

“A gavel stroke away from being the world’s most powerful human, he becomes someone’s suburban neighbor instead. What is that like? Al Gore wasn’t telling…until now.”

First off, Al Gore wasn’t a “gavel stroke away” being President. As I detailed back in July, the media recount after the election concluded Gore would have lost a statewide recount. Here’s the opening paragraph from the New York Times, certainly not a paper friendly to Bush, about what would have happened if the recount continued…

“A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year’s presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward”

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the Florida State Supreme Court wouldn’t have just had the votes counted again in a different way if Gore won. It’s not like they were paying attention to the law written before the election anyway right?

Here’s the one of two funny passages in the piece…

“He thanks her for her opinion and manages to keep moving to the curb, where he attracts the attention of a big, yellow-haired man in a gold-colored T-shirt who looks at Gore and then looks away, and then looks at him again, with wonder, as if he cannot believe what he is seeing.

“Mr.–Mr. Quayle?” he breathes.

Gore looks at him, quizzical.

“Dan–Dan Quayle?” says the man.”

I don’t suppose you can blame him for confusing Gore with Quayle. It’s hard to remember those #2 guys who are never going to make it to the top spot if you’re not into politics. Next the author gets into the election…

“Does he think he lost? “I believe that if everyone in Florida who tried to vote had his or her vote counted properly, that I would have won,” he says. “I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision, and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is.”

Tipper shares his viewpoint. “I believe we won. I still believe we won,” she says. Actually, she does say, once, “When we lost,” but immediately corrects herself to say, “I mean, we didn’t lose. When we had to concede,” and then, refining her thought: “When we had to abide by the rule of law.” Asked what phrases she uses in casual conversation, she has to think. “I usually say, ‘When we won but the Supreme Court decided we couldn’t serve.’ But that’s too long.”

We were robbed!! Wah!!!!! Even two years later they’re STILL whining. How classy, how “presidential”…

“Some Gore staffers say, looking back, they see now they never had much of a chance; when the networks called it for Bush, the Gore camp was put into a hole too deep to dig out of. “Had the recount gone forward and had we been announced as having taken a lead; had the tally screen shown Gore is now up by 100, 200, 300, then there would have been a change . . . Then it would have been, the Republicans are stealing this from Gore,” says Gore’s longtime friend and former chief of staff, Roy Neel.

Yes, it is funny how you never really have a shot when you’re never ahead in the election. Here’s the second hilarious part of the interview, about the “defeat party” after Bush was announced as the winner…

“You were dancing, you’d bump into someone and you would turn around at it would be Al Gore, getting down,” says Philippe Reines, a member of Gore’s communications staff.”

Al Gore getting down? Hahahahahahahah! I bet Gore is the master of that robotic break-dancing they used to do back in the eighties. Gore then gets into what he COULD have done after the election…

“I didn’t have to” stay quiet, he continues, almost as if working it through one more time. “I could have handled the whole thing differently, and instead of making a concession speech, launched a four-year rear guard guerrilla campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, and to mobilize for a rematch. And there was no shortage of advice to do that.”

So instead he sat by for a year while his supporters tried to undermine the legitimacy of the Bush Presidency and then he jumped into the fray himself? Give yourself a big pat on the back Al.

The article goes on from there but let’s cut to the chase. Not only did Gore lose fair and square — the FSSC actually changed the rules to try to keep him in the election. So isn’t it about time for him and Tipper to stop carping and whining? How petty and small does he have to be to still be crying two years later? He sounds like a kid who couldn’t get his mommy to buy a toy he wanted. It’ll be interesting to see if even the Democrats get tired of his sniveling by the time the Democratic primaries are over.

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