Gore Nation

Al Gore's latest attempt to win friends and influence people occurred at the Netroots Nation conference:

“The defenders of the status quo are the ones who have dug us into this hole,” he said, commenting that Americans have been “so often fooled into finding a remedy for a problem" that has nothing to do with the problem at hand — pointing to the invasion of Iraq when America was attacked by terrorists in Afghanistan as an example.

Rational people could conclude Gore helped shovel that 'hole' as VP for eight years, which included the WARMEST YEAR in the past century, 1998, without changing the way we lived. Guess we had more than a decade back then, but a decade later we suddenly only have a decade left. Unless Obama is elected.

But change is indeed here with 4 buck a gallon gas, ironically close to the target goal in "Earth in the Balance". Gore's solution seems to be to punish the little man for driving his evil car instead of using our own resources because it punishes Gaia (that's where the climate thing really comes in handy). It's a castor oil approach to government except for those with enough get out of climate jail free offset cards to weather any disturbances on the way to energy Valhalla.

Strange, his always friendly audiences never seem curious about such punishment (are there any Gore hecklers?), often including the media (whenever they're not too busy hinting that Bush needlessly fearmongers over terror and takes away civil liberties--as we know, fearmongering over climate is patriotic and acceptable).

Pointing out the obvious, it wouldn't be a Netroots speech without the oft-repeated drivel about Iraq being a mistake because AQ was in Afghanistan, even used completely out of context as Gore did. It's like pablum. Disregard Gore's own State Department list of terrorist-sponsoring nations and his own 1992 speech--all now 'settled' and 'inconvenient', debate over.

But hey, the rhetoric works or he wouldn't use it. Some folks want to believe, like in aliens, unicorns and winning the lottery. It's better than believing in a world where religious extremists unafraid to die pursue hobbies like decapitation with steak knives, forcing airline passengers into unscheduled stops in buildings, or to exit such structures through the windows. To believe Bush and the Joooos are the culprits requires only a new president to fix things, backed by the occasional and justified Katyusha rocket attack from the keffiyah resistance, of course.

There's your change. Obama is running on it, and he's just Gore with a slicker delivery.