The news came out at about 2 a.m. Pacific time. Everybody’s got some version of the story that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Here’s the opening from Time magazine’s essay that addresses the maelstrom of speculation now swirling around whether Al Gore will run for President.
This may be a media fed frenzy that will soon die off. If Al makes no move, that is, of course, the end of it. But, will he make the move? Will he risk another loss? (Since there is no such thing as a guaranteed win.)
And should he run?
The Times Eric Pooley says …Nah, No, Nope to all of the above. It’ ain’t happening, says Pooley. And then he goes on to explain why, after spending months with Gore, he’s sure he won’t run.
For the past year, Al Gore has gone about his considerable business without showing much interest in running for president. While picking up an Oscar and an Emmy, publishing a very smart book and playing host at a global concert for the planet, he’s never done more than tease the idea. And yet all that time, the leaders of the Draft Gore movement have been clinging to a single fervid dream: that Gore would win the Nobel Peace Prize and use it to catapult himself to an eleventh-hour bid for the presidency.
Now the Nobel Committee has done its part, awarding Gore the Peace Prize for being “probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted” to combat climate change, according to his citation. (The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was also a joint winner of the prize.) And so, after the obligatory spasms of celebration and the equally obligatory gnashing of Rush Limbaugh’s teeth, will Americans finally get to enjoy one of the great spectacles in political history, as Gore’s ultimate honor levitates him beyond his leading rival, Hillary Clinton, and into the Oval Office?Nope.
Let me be clear. If Al Gore gets into the presidential race, I’ll eat my copy of An Inconvenient Truth. (The paperback, not the DVD.) I’ve spent a good deal of time with Gore this year, while writing a TIME cover story about him. I think he’s staying out of the race — and I think I know why. But before I get into that, let me offer a few thoughts about what’s not keeping him on the sidelines. I don’t think Gore is staying out because of all the logistical difficulties that running would entail. Sure, it would be challenging to staff up a national organization and build the county-by-county teams he’d need to compete in the early states. True, he has no shadow campaign lurking in the background and waiting to be deployed. But he could hire one, recruiting first-rate people from other campaigns as they fade; and he could enlist his vast army of grassroots followers as well as his Silicon Valley friends in a rainmaking operation mighty enough to compete against the fundraising prowess of Clinton and Barack Obama. So the logistics, though daunting, aren’t what’s keeping Gore out.
Read the rest here.
Well, Gore has joined the likes of Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat. Let’s crown him President.
Leave it up the Nobel committee to find a left-wing, anti-western cause, unrelated to world peace, and to give a peace prize for it. CNN hosts this morning couldn’t contain their glee and excitement. That’s a lot of attention to someone who refuses debates on the issue and has pushed an intentionally misleading film with numerous inaccuracies over an issue for which the science is not settled and which has created much dissension among countries and wasted money that could be spent on food, health care, and education. Some peace award.
And, to think that he did nothing about this when he and Clinton were in office, and the Kyoto treaty was never sent to the Senate for ratification.
This is the prize and the guy that you celebrate?
Celeste, if you keep writing adoring posts on Al Gore, you’re going to force me to pull against So Cal on Saturday.
I would happily vote for Al Gore if he would get this country OFF mid-east OIL.
Using wind, solar, H2, clean nuclear, etc.
Plus, I belong to the ABC club.
The main reason to applaud the boys from Oslo is knowing how batty this news will drive the wingnuts like Woody! Just think the Norwegians completely ignored st Ronnie! Oh the humanity!
(Heh! Heh!)
But to be serious for a moment. What does it say about a political syatem where the most qualified person a party has declines to run for the highest office in the land? I know the reasons that he doesn’t and it has a lot to do with the shabby treatment he got in 2000 (see Bob Sommerby) and would doubtless get again from the likes of a Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich. But it also has a lot to with a dysfunctional nominating system that gives 25,000 white farmers in Iowa and 50,000 yokels in New Hampshire a disproportionate voice eleven months before the election. JANUARY 3? What a joke we’ve become!
Congratulations, Al Gore. Hard won. Richly deserved. I, too, would vote for him again in a heartbeat. But, I suspect Gore is too far ahead of the curve for most American voters. And, it’s too bad. He would be bored senseless leading the pack of morons we have become. We have a quarter century of mop-up to do. How exciting is that for someone who is so far out in front? Best wishes to him.
The L A Daily News has an editorial by Bridget Johnson that makes sense, even if Woody would agree with it. She points out that there are many, many far more worthy of a genuine peace prize than someone whose movie includes “junk science” (as documented even by those who do believe in global warming and environmental degradation, which IS a disaster, Woody and that fool Rush Limbaugh’s denials notwithstanding). What about the monks in Burma, suffering a fate similar to what Tibetan monks have for decades vs. China; journalists in countries like Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria and Russia who are imprisoned or killed for trying to reach out to other groups within their countries, and doctors and teachers who suffer the same for trying to “heal the world.”
Also, he lives in an enormous home, flies in a gas-guzzling private jet, etc., and fudges all this environmental waste by using bogus energy credits that he and other hypocritical wealthy people cooked up to make themselves look “green” without actually being so. His ignorance about Kyoto, his pandering to the international community without demanding the rest of the world and developing countries be held to our level of accountability, is dangerous for a “leader.”
As Johnson says, he is heralded just because people hate Bush so much, and he was his last opponent who arguably won the popular vote, so this is a political slap at Bush, not really a “peace” prize. This demeans the whole Nobel organization and the stature of the prize. They guy already has his PC Emmy and the perks of wealth: give this hugely visible distinction instead to someone languishing in obscurity after risking everything to do real peace work.
Personally I’m not that concerned with who wins the Noble Peace prize, but if Al Gore’s winning of the award angers old crotchety conservatives like Woody, then I say “way to go Al Goreâ€Â. I wonder who should be nominated next year hmmmmmm…………….I’m nominating a very smart woman, who can serve as a role model for oppressed women from all over the World…..I nominate the first woman to serve as United States President and Commander-In-Chief of our brave troops…….Hillary Clinton !!!!
I’m not angered by Gore getting the “Peace” prize from the anti-American Noble committee. It didn’t surprise me any more than him getting an Oscar from the Hollywood left. It’s just the same old left-wing, mutually admiring, Bush haters from whom we’ve come to expect such accolades. How sad that you would be ecstatic because you simply believe that this would anger others.
Update: There is a trail of urine pouring out of CNN Center from the news room, where people have wet all over themselves because of their excitement over Al Gore.
Don’t you just love the sour grapes coming from the know-nothings frothing at the mouth because this is one election that the Supremes can’t overturn! I’m surely going to take scientific advice from the DAILY NEWS. I mean they are so much more authoritative in the Porn Capitol of the World than those nerds at the National Science Foundation and the editorial staffs at SCIENCE, NATURE, and NEW SCIENTIST.
Yeah, you’re right, ric, another insightful comment: Johnson and the Daily News ARE well-known advocates of porn, as is everyone in the Valley, if they’re not actively starring in and making the flicks themselves. That definitely colors her views and is a highly relevant observation. Another brilliant analysis from the liberal left fringe.
The scientific community has made detailed criticisms of why many aspects of the film are unfounded; the Brits recently rejected it for use in its schools curricula, pointing to 11 claims which can’t be substantiated as science. Gore himself poked fun of his own alarmist in the film. And that objective scientist, liberal activist Laurie David produced the thing. This hyperbole works to make its point, as films must — but only you think it’s science. Hilarious how you take such a rich, private jet-flying wealthy hypocrite as your god. Also too bad you can’t afford the thousands of dollars a plate it costs to rub elbows with the Man of the People.
Actually, I’d love for him to run — he’ll send the most fiscally irresponsible Dem Edwards scurrying even more than he is now, and Obama, too. Too bad, he’s not going to run — he knows he’d just weaken the other Dems but never beat Hillary, anyway. She’s developed the sense to move towards the middle these days.
The most honest site with informed people on global warming:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/
The best site on global warming:
http://junkscience.com/
The most dishonest and worst site on global warming:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
You’re welcome.
Oh, one more site that I enjoy:
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
I meant to include this…the Greenie site has some nice quotes down the left sidebar. Here’s one:
and this:
Not counting this comment, the post shows that there are a total of 13 comments, but the detailed list clearly shows that there are 14. That’s what’s wrong with our schools. Teach math before poetry. (Then, too, people like Al Gore may learn how to count votes better.)
I would much prefer Gore to most that are running, for the simple reason that I believe he would put his heart into energy change.
Our country needs to invest heavily in clean energy.
Energy=food
Energy=water
Energy=transportation
Energy=heat and cooling
Energy=products and goods
Energy=shelter
We need an energy transformation in this country which allows us to progress into a bright future instead of a poluted dark one looking like road warrior.
Dream on wingies. Too bad the rest of the world is made up of commie “Prevert” America-Bashers who just don’t get the in herent goodness of a couple of Texas Oil hucksters!
From Woody’s favorite site ….
Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.
I wish George Bush would abolish those leftist initiated smog-checks on cars. And abolish the requirement for all smog equipment on cars. There is no smog in the Los Angeles greater valley. The CEO of General Motors said there is no pollution from cars and Dick Cheney and the CEO of Exxon agree.
That so called smog which would “supposedly” travel from Los Angeles all the way to San Bernardino back in 7o’s and 80’s was just a myth. The smog myth is being perpetrated by those tree-hugging liberal leftists like Al Gore. How stupid can liberal leftist people be to think that a car can actually pollute the environment? Only in liberal California are people stupid enough to buy Hybrid cars. Stupid actors like Ed Begley Jr. who drives a Hybrid car are trying to set example for more stupid Californians. Who would you believe a corporate CEO or a stupid liberal leftist actor? I don’t know why we even let the stupid leftist liberals of California vote.
Ghost, the L.A. inversions with the high mountains to your east are unique to your area and shouldn’t require someone who lives in our L.A., rural Lower Alabama, to pay for the same emissions standards and tests. But, as my favorite site says, you guys want everyone to be equal–no matter how stupid the requirement and no matter how much force of government you insist to make people pay for something not needed.
How about this…I read where installing solar panels for certain applications would take 208 years to return the investment. Yet, that is exactly the type of proposal that Al Gore and people like you are pushing. What’s stupid are those who think that such horrible returns are preferable to better medical and educational facilities.
LINK: Defining Peace Down – Al’s gift is political–not scientific
“On Tuesday the Nobel Foundation announced that Albert Fert of France and Peter Gruenberg of Germany had won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance. This morning Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for his global warmist propagandizing. But despite Gore’s scientific pretensions, his prize was not in physics, or in any other scientific discipline. The best he could do was the Peace Prize.”
STOP THE PRESSES!!!!
WSJ Editorial Page slams Nobel Committee in Oslo for awarding Peace Prize to Al Gore!
Now there is real news!
Nalbar ernqvat gur bcvavba cntrf bs gur JFW unf gur VD bs jnez lbtheg.
Not like Bush’s supporters have anything to be defensive about. Especially, since it’s being revealed that warrantless wiretapping was in effect well before 9/11. Kind of hard to justify current FISA amendments as a defense against terrorism when it appears the relaxed restrictions were in place well before the World Trade Towers fell. Kind of makes one think FISA has nothing to do with terrorism at all. And, especially, when those security experts, highly knowledgeable of data mining applications, decry data mining’s effectiveness for that kind of effort.
rlc, no, you shouldn’t be surprised at the position of the WSJ editiorial page, any more than I should be surprised that the major media slobbered all over themselves reporting that Gore was given the Noble Hate America Prize. What you should address isn’t who said something but if that something was correct, which it was in the case of the WSJ.
Listener, saying that “FISA has nothing to do with terrorism at all,” because it’s “kind of hard to justify current FISA amendments as a defense against terrorism when it appears the relaxed restrictions were in place before the World Trade Towers fell:” remember the bombing by the “blind sheik” who’s now in prison? And at least one other failed attempt, either of which could have caused the Towers to fall? The planes were used precisely because there was so much on-the-ground security as a result of these prior attempts.
As for Gore being played up by Bush haters, solely to spite him and his supporters, regardless of the merits of his hyperbolic science in the movie and speeches: ABSOLUTELY.
1979 Liberal Media News flash – Mother Teresa was just awarded the Nobel peace price, and we are slobbering all over ourselves
Leave it up the Nobel committee to find a left-wing, anti-western cause, unrelated to world peace, and to give a peace prize for it. Mother Teresa never helped the poor in America, she must hate America. I am so MADDDDDD at the left-wing, anti-American Nobel Prize committee.
You really have to go back a ways. Kissinger, Mother Teresa…why those Nobel guys are practically John Birchers.
If the Dems want to prove how much better they are at foreign relations that Bush, passing the Armenian genocide resolution and causing the Turks to pull back from their US support re: Iraq (whose Kurds they’ve been itching to go after, anyway), is really brilliant. Hard to be dumber than Bush re: world affairs, but they’re managing.
I think it’s great that Gore was able to leverage a film to get an important issue the kind of attention it needs and deserves and as I see more socially conscious documentaries appear on the film scene, I hope this trend continues. A new Katrina documentary, Desert Bayou (http://www.desertbayoumovie.com), is opening in LA on the 26th at Laemmle Sunset 5, and I’m pretty excited to see it. I hear it’s gotten endorsed by the NAACP and the ACLU for its portrayal of not only the incompetencies of the American political system, but of existing racial tensions in the country. I hope it helps propel a policy shift to support post-Katrina New Orleans better and bring greater national attention to issues of poverty and race.
The director, Alex LeMay, is doing Q&A sessions after the 7:30pm showings on the 26th and 27th. Should be interesting!
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