I would say that 99 percent of the perception about Gores so-called political mistakes are bullshit and there is no better place on the net that documents the bullshit and how it came about than Bob Somerbys Daily Howler.

I know that Somerby has sometimes pissed us off with some of his rants against Joe Wilson, etc....but no matter because he's the best when he writes about big Al. In almost every negative talking point about Al, Somerby writes in detail how the talking point started and how the press pushed the talking point forward. From earth tones, to the inventing of the internet, to Al's supposed Silver Spoon childhood...Bob shoots it down with his excellent writing and facts.

To this very day, even here on DU, I here talk and see postings that continue using these bullshit talking points about Al Gore..... which means that if Al does run in 2008, you can bet it will happen again.

My hope is that this time, we can attack the messengers of bullshit and propel this great man to the top so that he can save our country.

So please, if you haven't, read up......

http://www.dailyhowler.com/

He won, so they couldn't have been that bad. About the only thing I see that he may have done wrong is underestimate the Neo-con machine and how far they would go to win.

not how far they would go to "win".

It's very, very important to reserve the word "win" for candidates who receive the greatest number of votes in a free and fair election on reliable, accurate voting casting/counting systems.

Anything less is "stole"...

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

An oldy but a goody... GORE WON IN 2000!

Al Gore won, hence, Al Gore is a winner.

Gore's Victory

By Robert Parry -- November 12, 2001
<http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html>

So Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters -- whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

Gore won even if one doesn’t count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls.

Gore won even if there’s no adjustment for George W. Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida’s voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide.

Yes, it should have been how far they would go to steal the election. See what happens when you start posting things pre-coffee?

Or do political operatives simply like using this as a political meme now to make them think that will get him votes now without realizing where he even is in his life now? It won't, because more than half of this country doesn't believe those words, and too much time has now passed with the American people who do know it not doing a damned thing about it. He WON in 2000, but chose not to run in 2004 when that year should definitely have been the year to seek justice for that crime... for people to think he would run now and want nothing but what you said to be the meme along with dragging up everything from the last twenty years when he said that was exactly the reason why he DIDN'T run in 2004, just shows that people have not learned anything about this. And everytime you scream 'GORE WON IN 2000!', you also amplify the FAILURE of the people to do the right thing by our Constitution then, which was to be standing in the streets screaming that THEN until it made a difference!

Until people in this country can run a political campaign without sound bites, memes, and looking to the future by really taking on the special interests and CRIMINALS that steal our Democracy rather than just shouting sound bites, forget good people being president in this country. If you do not belong to the secret society or the good ole boys network, you don't get in. 2000 proved that loud and clear, and NOTHING has changed since. So why should he run when NOTHING has changed on that score when what he is doing now is so important to our future as a species? But oh yeah, I can see how batting this shit around again for the next two years far surpasses the fate of our planet in importance.

Al Gore has gone through a complete emotional and spiritual transfiguration since 2000, combined with the other events he showcased in his movie to show people what we will lose by not waking up to the fact that our Earth is now on life support. He now sees what is truly important in life, and our planet is now number one as it always has been. Not spending another BS political cycle wasting time fighting off the same shit from before, when we have a planet whose window is closing.

In 2000, 2002, and 2004, the DNC never lifted a finger to strengthen the party infrastructure in every red or swing state. They let them collapse as they pursued their foolish targetted state strategy.

The result was that candidates who won couldn't get the votes they earned secured and counted at the county level. They were either stolen and suppressed in the many months before the election or suppressed and stolen on election day.

DNC was too weak to counter those tactics in too many states.

Remember!

Are you reading, carville?

and that was so they could cover Terry McAuliffe's ass for his four year refusal to strengthen party infrastructure and secure our elections.

Then with a 2006 win they tried a blame Dean/DNC first = but this time the netroots were well aware the Clintonites were again working public perception. Many of us knew a year ago they were going to try and dump Dean.

I am proud that we fought back.

Thanks for the link.

K & R.

even tried to make a bumper sticker but i couldnt figure out how to post it here..
I voted for Gore..watched the supreme court humiliate all of us while the 2000 stolen election was shoved down our throats...but even then, I wasn't as impressed or as determined to see Gore be president...but now, everything i see him say or do resonates as the sole individual who can lead us out of this mess....i almost hate to say that in some ways he benefitted from 2000...because the fire in his belly is tangible...i want to scream it from the rooftops and put it in big bold letters across the sky...IT'S GOTTA BE GORE...

YA KNOW. . .

THE ONE-TWO PUNCH !!!

GORE / CLARK 2008

:kick: :loveya: :kick: :loveya: :kick:

I think that might be the most sensible, winningest one.

Gore- global warming
Clark- fix the military mess.

strength. Al Gore will be excellent on the domestic and political side.

But it will take DU and every Liberal and Progressive pushing the knowledge of catastrophic climate change, it all of its facets, to get him in power. We, imho, should be touting the global situation and Al Gore's presidency will follow. If the Corporate Media continues to ignore global climate change then his changes are poorer. If they get on board with the science and begin addressing the economic as well as environmental consequences then he is almost a sure thing.

As much as I like Al Gore, what I really get excited about is who might surround him in his administration. He has a ton of wonderful folks to put in places of real importance. Barbara Boxer, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Wes Clark, Howard Dean, Elliot Spitzer, the list goes on and on and on.....

He is the Man for the Job. The public just has to be made aware of what the job truly is. If we push "business as usual" and ignore the global issues then its a dead deal.....for all of us.

person impression that folks like my wife have of him - which has not changed over the years.

I'm not sure he would get her vote - simply on that basis - even in the general.

he learned a lot from the criminal neocons...i think he is going to run..just playing his cards right...boorish is not the word to describe this very passionate and determined man..

i dont know where to get the link but i'll try to find it..

:-)

It was inspiring. I rewound the tape and watched a couple of parts of it twice.

Gore is looking so serious at the young one.

what kind of world will he inherit?

He IS the only candidate. A brilliant speech by a man who truly understands history. Gore won't doom us by repeating it.

Can't display link here for some reason- go to c-span.org, about midpage you'll find a "video search" engine- put "Gore" in it and go to the "Next 10" link at the bottom and at the bottom of the 2nd page you'll find-

Fmr. Vice Pres. Gore Speech on Executive Powers
The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition host a speech by Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore at the DAR Hall in Washington. Gore speaks about the limits of executive power, the issue of monitoring domestic communications and the authorization of the use of torture in the war against terrorism.
1/16/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr. 5 min.

Enjoy!

that turned me from a tepid, at best, Gore supporter to an all-out sign me up, what can I do to help him get elected fan! It was a masterful presentation that spoke to so many of the frustrations I have been experiencing under the Bush regime. I even sent him a personal letter with a small donation asking him to run in '08. The money was returned along with a generic, albeit polite, note that he was not planning to run at that time.

I still have my fingers crossed. I would be proud to support the Honorable Al Gore in a run for the presidency.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/01/16.html#a6728

maybe someone can direct to the whole speech..
in my mind, that was the beginning of his campaign...to set our country back on track again..

http://c-span.org/Search/advanced.asp?AdvancedQueryText=al+gore&StartDateMonth=&StartDateYear=&EndDateMonth=&QueryTextOptions=&EndDateYear=&ProgramIssue=&Series=&QueryType=&ResultCount=10&SortBy=date&

(The third one down from 1/16/06, if sorted by date)

n/t

Quicktime I would appreciate it...

I always get a "format not supported" message. I can play QuickTime videos online, but cannot get videos on C-SPAN to cooperate!

https://order.real.com/pt/order.html?country=US&language=EN&mppi=0&mppos_list=0&mpst=0&ppath=cpmacpl060204a&pageregion=player_button&pcode=rn&opage=realhome_spmac_bb&src=realhome_spmac_bb_0_1_1_0_0_2_0

I'm on a Mac with OSX and it plays for me.

Maybe my system is defaulting to QuickTime...

I watch DemocracyNow! daily and it plays on my RealPlayer - when I click the link at C-SPAN it downloads as QuickTime.

:shrug:

Protocol Request" that asks me if I want to launch Real Player and there's a check box for "Remember my choice for all links of this type".

In your Systems Preference, there's a window for Quick Time under the heading "Browser" that says "Play movies automatically"; maybe if you uncheck that it'll make a difference? (Mine is checked, though.)

I downloaded RealPlayer 10.0 -- I had had 9.0 installed. When I installed the new version it asked if I wanted to play Quicktime and AVI videos using RealPlayer and I said "yes". It is playing nicely now!

I think when I installed the lastest version of Quicktime it probably asked me a question about whether I wanted Quicktime to be the primary player and I said "yes" at the time and that caused the problem.

Thanks for your help!

:hi:

:hi:

:-)

were his heroic acts after Katrina. While * was dithering around elsewhere, Gore cut thru mountains of red tape and got a plane to NOLA twice to rescue folks trapped in hospitals there, and refused to talk to the press about it. Only ones who seem to know about it are folks on the net.

If your wife hasn't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet, you might get a copy for her -- that documentary convinced my (erstwhile Republican) husband that Gore would make a great president.

President Gore with a member of the National Guard:


President Gore prepares to fly sick people from New Orleans to Tennessee:


:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

republican.."erstwhile":P

Your wife should stay home on election day. In this day and age, anyone who casts a vote without considering the FACTS and voting records of a person should lose their right to vote. I was appalled when a co-worker voted for Bush because she thought Kerry's wife wouldn't make a good first lady.
The voters in this country need to smarten up. We are literally handing over our democracy to corporate interests simply because we're too lazy to learn about the process. We let the 'people in charge' make the decisions, because we don't want to miss this week's episode of Survivor.
Well, thanks to that attitude, the American people (with Diebold's help) have put the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm sure your wife is a very intelligent person with a lot of wonderful qualities, but, like most Americans, she's buying into the media's portrayal of what we should think is important, instead of what really is important.
If you do nothing else, please rent 'An inconvenient Truth' for your wife, and see if she doesn't start to see Al Gore in a different light than the media wants her to see.
Peace.
Edit - after rereading my post, I realized I haven't had enough coffee. Please forgive me if I seem rude, I'm just frustrated because I know too many nice people who think like your wife, and don't look at the whole picture. Please forgive my rant.

didn't vote for Kerry because she didn't like his wife. She also has said that we needed to go to Iraq because of 911. Her 19 yo son is now in Iraq. She hasn't mentioned anything about him or anything else lately, but we have been very busy at work and now it seems to be a subject that no one wants to bring up at work.

we have all had that reaction and then not found the best words to express it.

peace

:-)

Before I provide some links, I apologize if you already these sources. Also, let me wish you good luck. I had a similar issue with my sister in 2000. She liked Gore in 1999 and then by the spring of 2000 she had succumbed to the brainwashing of the CM. It took about three or four years but she finally agreed to read a few things and then admitted her negative feelings were based on fabrications of the CM. In another instance a couple of weeks ago, we had a friend over who was bashing Gore. As promised, I emailed him a ton of stuff (hyper-enthusiasm!) and he asked me to recommend one. So I sent him Gore's speech on why the IWR resolution was a bad idea (September 23, 2002). My friend is now interested in Gore again and used the word "idealism" in his reply email! Anyway, here is one sample from Somerby about the consistently negative attitude of the press on Gore in 2000:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h101199_1.shtml

one of a vast collection of pieces documenting that the image of Gore in 2000 was a false one. I hope she (and others like her) will consider the possibility that the corporate media is without credibility in political reporting.

They decide on a storyline (some call it the meta-narrative). Then they report and spin that way, regardless of the facts.

OP is correct. If she will read the Daily Howler archives from 1999 and 2000 she will become informed about how the CM painted a false picture of Gore (in a way that won't be possible in 2008 because of the bloggers increasing influence).

Here is a really interesting thread on salon.com, where old spin re-hashed from 2000 is destroyed by the readership.

N.B. If you aren't a Salon premium member, you will have to watch a short commercial.

http://letters.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/05/24/gore/view/index1.html

Finally, a compendium of false attacks on Gore. It's not exhaustive (I have not been able to yet count all the false stories from that campaign, but I believe, as incredible as it may sound, that there may be over 100 original false reports). This is the most amazing journalistic behavior in at least 60 years:

http://www.eriposte.com/media/bias/media_bias_gore.htm

too much for her to vote for.

We are up to speed on the media sell out and indeed sent out a few thousand emails plus a few hundred letters in Spring, Summer, and Fall 2000. And in the end, she could not bring herself to vote for boring - in the old days that would have meant a Gus Hall vote, but I forget the options in 2000 in Mass so I can't even guess who she voted for, if anyone.

But I am very serious - the Gore image is hard to change.

I remember that corporate enabling media meme after the speech he gave a year or so ago that was a barn burner. I don't remember exactly what the circumstances of it were but it was passionate and nothing near boring.

driving a car off s mountian cliff is probably not boring either.

... no matter what the evidence smacking them in the face says.

Yah - that IS a big problem.

she watch the MLK day speech, An Inconvenient Truth and one more that I would like to add ........

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=al_gore


If she watches no more than the first 5-8 minutes, she will see how truly funny and human he is - far from boring.

As another poster said, I liked Gore in 2000, but I LOVE him now. He's intelligent, passionate, funny, compassionate, warm, intelligent, experienced, intelligent....did I say INTELLIGENT?? Seriously, we NEED this man to be our President.

is hardly something that anyone can say wasn't a huge mistake. There were others- but Lieberman really took the cake.

voting record, too.

I think he would have been better off quietly declining her invitation to have been a part of it. However, he went out of his way to go after her to make sure it fit with his meme that his handlers were having him do at the time which was "I'm not Bill Clinton!". The same reason applied for his selection of Joe Lieberman too, since he was someone that had noticeably critized Clinton for his sexcapades, etc. at that time.

Gore at that time was more about trying not to be Bill Clinton than really coming forward and telling voters why they wanted to vote for HIM! I was very close to voting for Nader then as a result of that flawed campaign strategy. He finally started to become himself with his concession speech. And since that time, and his distancing himself from the DLC and other problematic elements of the Democratic Party, he's been more himself and really shows a passion for issues such as protecting the environment and others that ring home to Democrats' hearts. He's one of the few on Capitol Hill that I think have really learned from his mistakes and have changed very positively since then. I'd very much support himself this time around. Especially if he picks Russell Feingold as his running mate, a far better man with Jewish beliefs than Mr. Lieberman.

Hillary on the other hand...

picked lieman to counteract the devil in the blue dress.

Gore has evolved so much since 2000 and I liked him then..I love 'im now.

Rather than being Al Gore in his own right, he went back and forth listening following dubious advisers and focus groups. It seems to me that he and his advisers) let the corporate media walk all over them and in some respects define their "strategy."

Whoever runs in 2008 would be wise to go back and have a look at that campaign.

I'm watching An Inconvenient Truth right now BTW. It's very well presented. Definitely something everyone needs to see.

It was passed under Clinton and I heard that Gore was a chief architech of NAFTA. Does anyone know if that is true? And what his stance is now on the issue of free trade?

but doesn't the NA stand for North American? A republican co-worker of mine is trying to blame all the outsourcing of jobs to India on Clinton (big surprise) and NAFTA.
Sorry to hijack this, but could someone please educate me (this is why I hang around here). Thanks.
Peace.

The WTO opened up Free Trade to China and India. All passed under Clinton.

This from On the Issues (http://www.ontheissues.org/Background_Free_Trade.htm)...


NAFTA
# The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 establishes a free-trade zone between the US, Canada, and Mexico.
# A ‘free trade zone’ means that goods can cross the border in either direction without tariffs or taxes of any kind.
# Canada is the largest trading partner of the US, accounting for over 25% of both our imports and exports.
# Mexico & Japan account for about 15% each; Europe combined for about 20%; and East Asia combined for about 15%.
# NAFTA passed with some important compromises to protect the environment and labor standards; these are refered to as ‘Side Agreements.’
# In 1994, President Clinton invited Chile to join NAFTA as the next step toward a Free Trade Zone for the Americas.
# In 2001, President Bush formalized the proposal of expanding NAFTA to a Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), encompassing 34 countries and 800 million people by 2005.
GATT & WTO
# The World Trade Organization is an international organization intended to reduce trade barriers, formed in 1995.
# The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs is the international treaty which preceded the WTO's formation; it began in 1947.
# The ‘Uruguay Round’ was the most recently completed round of GATT negotiations, completed in 1994.
# Negotiations to start a new ‘Round’ took place in Seattle in Dec. 1999, but were disrupted by riots.
# WTO members (which includes the US and most industrialized countries) grant each other ‘MFN’ or Most Favored Nation status, which means minimal import tariffs.

They truly believe in free trade for corporations but not for people.

and it does not reflect well on him, from a progressive point of view. You republican co-worker is exactly right when he says outsourcing is caused by free-trade Americans. Little does he realize, probably, that it is the large global corporate interests, so-called capitalists, are the ones who in effect create these trade agreements. There's nothing wrong with trade or trade agreements as such, but it is wrong when those mean exploitation of poor countries and lower wages and fewer jobs 'at home' - all to the benefit of a small but rich and powerful minority.


I googled for Gore and NAFTA:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Al_Gore_Free_Trade.htm
Al Gore on NAFTA + WTO
More Latin American trade, with labor & enviro protections

Q: Would you pursue a hemispheric trade deal extending the benefits of NAFTA to Central and South America and the Caribbean?

A: "I am committed to enhancing our alliance and expanding trade with the countries of Latin America. Trade has been an important part of our economic expansion and creates high-paying jobs. As president, I will build on the work that the administration began when the U.S. hosted the first Summit of the Americas to promote hemispheric cooperation on a full spectrum of political, economic, security, and social issues. As we expand our trade agreements, we can achieve more based on what we have learned in the past seven years. I will insist that labor and environmental protections are included as part of future trade agreements."


Assuming that Gore knows what he's talking about, he does not support NAFTA "as is", because it does not include labor and environmental protections, but rather calls those and treats those as "trade barriers".

On the other hand, i don't know Gore to be one who is in the habit of exposing NAFTA and so-called Free Trade for the racket that it is.

on edit:
Closer inspection reveals that in the Gore vs Perot debate on NAFTA, Gore was the one defending NAFTA, while Perot was warning for the negative consequences. Isn't that interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Debate_with_Perot

means North American Free Trade Association

nothing to do with india to my knowledge, or with europe, or asia, or africa, or australia...or south america, or antartica...etcetera. mexico, USA, canada.

No drug war escalation.

I hope that Al Gore runs in 2008. I think he is our best shot.

He would be president right now if he campaigned better in 2000; he didn't even have my support back then.

Now he has my complete support.

Thank you trumad:thumbsup:

:kick:

(put them in a folder, "2008")

middle name?

Did you google that?

It's funny, but in Rocky you had Paulie trying to pick a fight with Rocky and in the Cinderella Man you had his bud Mike try to pick a fight with Braddock.

you had at least four guys who were glorified roadies who were convinced that they were part of the group, and who got annoyed when one of the real Beatles didn't share their belief. That is just part of the dynamics of human relationships.

My great uncle helped train Braddock for his first title defense. Who was it against?

Joe Louis Barrow, aka Joe Louis.

Joe Lewis was the quarterbark of Joey Lewis & the News.

;-)

afraid i'd find out a reason not to support the person who is my personal first choice for our next president. instead i find a post confronting the bullshit. thanks

And even Al Gore knows that. So sad so many still don't get that. And as far as the same old Bs being brought up, it has been going on for the last year or more regarding his work on the climate crisis and I have not seen any concerted effort to confront that now... How many wrote letters to the NSTA last week? So if people can't support his work on the climate crisis now but just expect him to "save them", why should he run? Does "having his back" only apply when he does what people want on a political level?

...who led the PMRC charge against the First Amendment in the Eighties, and that bothers me.

for god's sake. A song about child abuse. I'll be damned if I'll EVER understand that.

That was an exercise in stupidity.

But I don't blame Al for that.

But I wasn't too pleased with Tipper Gore then either, and wished that if they felt that strongly that they had just worked with record labels without the public display. And the fact that she was also friends with James Baker's wife who was also a member of the PMRC with her didn't win any points with me either. Although as a parent I can understand the frustration, I think they took it too far. And I liked "We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore" by Twisted Sister that was on their 15 song hit list as well as a couple others and I never wanted to jump off a cliff. That whole episode was embarrassing... and now we see Al Gore on MTV making a joke about getting 'sexy back.' My how times have changed. ;-).

Dee Snyder earned my respect speaking at those hearings, although I think Frank Zappa was really the star.

Most of the music industry sat it out. Motley Crue was like "Hey, put labels on our albums? Great idea!" They did it voluntarily and boosted their sales tremendously.

And, yes, they have served to boost sales more than anything else, which I think is pretty funny.

Talk about a backfire.

She may be completely different now, I have no idea. I personally couldn't marry a censor, though, because it's an important issue to me. If he can, that says something about his character, and it's one of the things I'll consider at the polls. He would still get my vote over half of the people likely to run.

I's like to hear what she would say-seriously.

Not his fault. It was just good hate-marketing by the GOP. I think the national mood has changed, and Al would win easily against whatever the shitbuckets throw at him. We have a group of good potential candidates, and Al is at or near the top for me.

And don't forget the 2000/2001 Bush v Gore archives.

He has all the important qualities to be a great leader


I will be disappointed if he does not run