cookie jill posted this West Wing Thanksgiving clip at skippy. It reminded me that during four days in late August of 2000 at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles I saw four presidents up close. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore (hey, he won by 543,895 votes) and…

…Jed Bartlet.

I contemplated writing an essay about Al Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, something inspirational and nostalgic.

Then I read this:

Davenport, Ia. — Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain said the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, announced today, should have gone to someone else other than former Vice President Al Gore.

“I would have liked to see that prize go to the Buddhist monks who are suffering and dying in Burma,” McCain said after a speech this morning in Davenport….

That’s when I realized it. Al Gore didn’t get an Emmy, an Academy Award [Oscar] and the Nobel Peace Prize because he is concerned about the effects of global warming. He went after all those accolades to upset republicans and their enabling cable network gasbags. Brilliant strategery. Why, at this very moment Al Gore is probably rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee at all their sputtering and exploding heads.

Living well is the best revenge.

Let’s get back to John McCain – the man who is running way behind a whole bunch of other people for the republican nomination to be president. The Nobel organization states about nominations:

In the month of September, the respective Nobel Committees send invitations to thousands of qualified individuals to submit names of candidates for the following year. Around 200-300 names are submitted since the same candidate can be nominated by several persons. The names of the nominees cannot be revealed until 50 years later.

If you’re really dense, or a republican cable network bloviator, I’ll spell it out for you. The Buddhist monks in Myanmar (how’s that for presidential geopolitical knowledge?) are eligible to be nominated for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize – their commendable and life risking activities for peace have only recently taken place in the public eye. Since he didn’t know that, we can probably assume that John McCain is upset that he hasn’t ever been solicited to nominate anyone by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Either that, or he knew and he’s an ungracious political hack.

Nah, they’re probably all just unhappy because the United States Supreme Court didn’t vote 5 to 4 to give the Nobel Peace Prize to dubya.
[Yes, I stole that joke.]

Years ago I stopped my subscription to The Nation because I couldn’t stand their choice of resident bad boy writer. I remember thinking to myself, “I’m not going to continue paying good money for this guy’s….”

Yet, like any number of media favourites, he still pops up from time to time (you know, a book here, an article there, the occasional cable television appearance with those lovely perks in the green room). One of his latest mud pies appeared September 24th in Slate:

Run, Al, Run

….Apart from the awards, not only could Gore claim that he had been a fairly effective senator and a reasonably competent vice president, he could also present himself in zeitgeist terms as the candidate who was on the right side of the two great overarching questions: the climate crisis and the war in Mesopotamia. Should I add that, whether or not he really won the Electoral College in 2000, he did manage to collect the majority of the popular vote? Several people, some of them well-informed, have been saying to me that Gore will wait until the Nobel committee’s announcement before he makes up his mind. Should he make up his mind to run, he could alter the entire equation….

Except, that wasn’t always his tune.

Not a fan of consistency, eh? Or is it that nothing fails like the current administration’s failure?

June 7, 2004:

Hitchens’s two cents: Gore “nuts”

Author Christopher Hitchens joined the chorus of right-wing pundits purporting to diagnose former Vice President Al Gore’s psychiatric state following Gore’s May 26 speech about U.S. policy in Iraq. Hitchens, appearing on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country on June 3, said, “Al Gore’s been making speeches that make him look and sound completely nuts.”

February 11, 2003:

Q&A With Christopher Hitchens

….And I’m very glad that Nader stayed in to the end, because he hurt Al Gore’s chances of winning….

….Al Gore had allowed himself to become a humble, hollowed-out, humiliated figure. I didn’t want a zombie to be the president of the United States….

July 13, 2000:

If Not Now…

….It is as possible, in theory as well as practice, to imagine Gore making a safe and stupid reactionary appointment as it is to picture Bush making an “unpredictable” centrist one….

Hmmm. Roberts and Alito. How’d that work out for you Chris?

January 20, 2002

Hey, I’m doing my best

….And not many people wish that Al Gore and his team had been on the bridge four months ago….

If they didn’t then, they sure do now.

September/October 2000

Bill of Goods

….Indeed, the very thing about Clinton that endeared him to some liberals — the fierce hatred he aroused on the right (whose famous “coup” would have made Al Gore president in 1999, probably his best chance) — was exactly what made him so toxic….