‘A Test of National Character’

May 26, 2006

[tag]Al Gore[/tag] has the [tag]media[/tag]’s attention, he has his critics’ attention, and today he gets [tag]Paul Krugman[/tag]’s attention. The NYT columnist notes the hyperventalating response “[tag]An Inconvenient Truth[/tag]” has generated in some circles, but believes it’s part of a larger problem.

Actually, the right’s panicky response to Mr. Gore’s film is probably a good thing, because it reveals for all to see the dishonesty and fear-mongering on which the opposition to doing something about climate change rests.

But “An Inconvenient Truth” isn’t just about global warming, of course. It’s also about Mr. [tag]Gore[/tag]. And it is, implicitly, a cautionary tale about what’s been wrong with our politics.

Why, after all, was Mr. Gore’s popular-vote margin in the 2000 election narrow enough that he could be denied the [tag]White House[/tag]? Any account that neglects the determination of some journalists to make him a figure of ridicule misses a key part of the story. Why were those journalists so determined to jeer Mr. Gore? Because of the very qualities that allowed him to realize the importance of global warming, many years before any other major political figure: his earnestness, and his genuine interest in facts, numbers and serious analysis.

Krugman offers a provocative question. We have an administration that wants to create its own reality and denies basic facts on issues such as the war, Hurricane Katrina, and global warming. But Krugman wants to know if someone who’ll take challenges like global warming seriously, and who’s prepared to act on it, can get elected.

But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don’t pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That’s a test of national character. I wonder whether we’ll pass.

It’s a fair question; I guess we’ll find out in 30 months. Anyone have any predictions?

Americans just can’t stand the wonky speech patterns of an Al Gore. They’d much rather listen to Boy George II mangling the English language. It makes them feel better to have a leader who clearly has no education 😉

  • Not a chance. The press, as made obvious by Dean Broder’s and, I think, Maureen Dowd’s lamenting of Hillary’s “droning speech” on energy policy (it was filled with facts, analysis and policy!), makes it clear that they do not have the interest in listening to, let alone evaluating such things. To busy looking for the cocktail weenies, I guess.

  • I’m afraid we’ll decide that Gays adopting children is more of a threat than global warming or reality based governing. We really are a very rich but stupid nation when it comes right down to it.

    We’d elect Paris Hilton in a minute, however.

  • …Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don’t pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies?

    It’s a fair question; I guess we’ll find out in 30 months. Anyone have any predictions?

    I’m not sure it is a fair question. I think people could reasonably state that Bill Clinton was willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible polices *and* pandered. Okay, it wasn’t called pandering, but triangulation sure seems similar enough to me.

    A friend of mine once stated that the presidential election is a beauty contest. I disagreed then but after seeing W win twice am starting to think that he is essentially correct. I mean look at the often repeated question “who would you rather have a beer with?” That’s an important criteria for being the most powerful person in the world? Give me a break. The popularity contest aspect to the presidential election is why I think we can beat McCain, but that Allen will be tougher competitor.

  • Prediction

    If the Democrats take both houses this fall there will be a Republican, McCain in the white house, 2009 and a Democratic controlled congress.

    If the Republicans maintain control this fall then the entire government will be composed of a majority of Democrats, 2009. The white house can go either way in that case but I would bet on a Democrat that is unlikely today, Clark, Edwards, Dean even.

    The country has had enough of politics as usual for the zillionth time is what a sweep will say either now or later. If it’s now the Democrats will be lumped in with the GOP, 2008 election. The fear, terrorism that ravages the voter’s mind will not go away real soon. There is a good start that will be slow taking effect. Takes a little getting used to. http://www.hoax-buster.org identifies the source headwaters of the fear that rules us.

  • Al Gore seems to be a very honest, viable presidential candidate who would tackle and try to solve real problems rather than made-up false issues. A candidate I–and I hope most of my fellow Americans–could vote for to put the country back on track. It’s up to him whether he’d be ready to take on that challenge once again.

    Let’s hope he’ll take on that challenge; his candidacy would be a refreshing change to the current political landscape.

  • The pundit class has become nothing more than a chattering high school clique. They denigrate anyone stronger than them and abuse anyone weaker, all so that only other mediocrities in their social set can get to be popular. No wonder the public is diregarding their publications these days … in droves.

  • I’m conflicted. I know the quality of political discussion in the country has fallen lately. Beginning with that monster, Ronald Reagan, and the demise of the “Fairness Doctrine”, TV-as-entertainment has swamped and swallowed TV-as-anything-else (news, sports, politics). It’s now a tool of the corporations, which want us atomized, isolated, iPodded, ignorant, ready to leap to the latest product, hungry to smackdown “debates”.

    At the same time I believe the public really would elect an FDR or a JFK, say, even today. I believe we’re hungry for that. Hungry to be able to hold our chins up high in the world, to be proud of being Americans again, to be less cynical than we’ve become, to have a president who can mix it up with Nobel prize winners and not come off looking like a boob. I don’t know what it is that has made politics so unattractive to so many potential candidates. The savagery of the so-called press? The cost of campaigning? The fact that the only political medium, TV, is operated in the interests of corporations?

    Public financing of elections wouldn’t solve all our problems (you can’t get much dirtier than the Jefferson v. Adams pre-TV conflict of 1800), but it ‘s beginning to look like a pretty big step in the right direction.

  • i’m with petorando, although instead of high school clique i’d say critics and most americans are more like joel, mike and the bots on mst3k, speaking over the movie and putting their own cleverness front and center.

    cokie roberts told a story at a lunch i attended about how gore once brought a flip chart to a dinner party, he was so wonky. but the wonky people should be running the country. they get the issues. they get the costs, the risks, and the needs. they get the things other people turn a blind eye towards because they are too cowardly to get them. so, no, i don’t think gore has a chance.

  • If in 30 months we are still talking about the merits of the message Al Gore is trying to convey right now (and we need to hurry), and actually doing something about it, his film will have served its purpose. He may have the ulterior motive of another run for president, but I believe he really is happy that Hillary and others are starting to address this grave issue of global warming. I don’t think his jockeying for president as much as he is for changing the cultural climate of Americans towards impending doom.

  • Cynicism is pervasive but so is the hope for something better. When I read/hear the positive responses to a clear and progressive communicator like Barak Obama or the recent startled approval of a straight talking Al Gore, I know folks are wanting to hear from a leader.

    American’s, and for that matter the entire world, know we’re being lied to and taken for fools. Part of the story is the public saying enough B.S. but the other part is knowing that there is some point to saying it. Right now we’ve got B.S. behind B.S. and more B.S. behind that. Having some confidence that the B.S. might actually be finite would go a long way to rousing public interest.

  • Not sure that a candidate’s true vision will ever break through all the campaign and media filters so that it is truly and clearly communicated to the masses in an understandable format. Most candidates would impose filters on their own words and campaigns to avoid being labeled “Mr. Moonbeam” or something to that effect. Seems like our electoral system is so broken that it selects for people like George Bush instead of someone with an alternate vision that might actually lead us out of our hopelessness. A fatal vision has captured us and breaking out of it before it leads us to our reckoning, at this stage, seems like a bad wager. Even if this grand leader does get elected, the chances of his succeeding in leading us out of the hole seems like a long shot. Sometime, we really will be over the edge. My guess is that wise leader might have been among the 58,000 killed in Viet Nam. Fallible leaders. Fatal mistakes. Does God really bless America?

  • I’m hoping that a majority of people in this country are tired of the B.S. that’s coming out of Washington right now. It would seem to be true, if you look at the polls – low approval ratings for the preznit and the congress, for example.

    What this country needs is to be told the truth, that there is hope, that there are solutions to our problems (and what they are or could be). They need to be told that by someone who comes across as warm and caring, with a sense of humor, yet strong, intelligent, and articulate. From what I’ve seen, Gore seems to be shedding some of his public “wonkiness” and “stiffness”. According to Amb. Joe Wilson’s book (Joe worked for Gore for a while), Gore isn’t really the stiff person he came across as in 2000 (and of course, he was wrongly reamed by the media). Joe saw first hand how well Gore interacted with people in TN at town halls, etc. And even thought the public at large saw him as “stiff” and “wonky”, Gore still won the popular vote. And the electoral vote if you believe that FL went to him (as later recounts showed).

    I think at this point, a majority of the country is so sick of bushcheneyrummy, et al. they are ready to embrace someone like Al Gore. JMHO, of course.

  • It was interesting, yesterday, half-listening to a Manhattan talk show (national audience on satellite). The host went polling for Democratic presidential candidate preferences. Gore did about the best. Hillary worst. Feingold and Warner in between. Dismissive reference to Edwards.

  • Digby once said something to the effect that the Republicans should be ashamed for foisting a loser like George W. Bush on the nation as their best candidate. But the complicit media certainly helped their cause (along with the Supreme Court). The polls are bad for the GOP, that’ s true, but when voters get to the polls, are they actually going to vote for their self-interest or for Republicans because they are “good Christians” after all? I’m still very worred about the whole situation!

  • Ed Stephan wrote in part:
    Beginning with that monster, Ronald Reagan, and the demise of the “Fairness Doctrine”, TV-as-entertainment has swamped and swallowed TV-as-anything-else (news, sports, politics).

    Well, Ed — heh, heh — there you go again.

  • Does anybody subscribe to Business Week?

    Randi Rhodes is talking about this today:

    The Spy Chief’s New Financial Power – Bush has quietly authorized Negroponte to waive SEC rules, BusinessWeek has learned…
    By Dawn Kopecki – June 05, 2006 edition

  • Very heartening that this point has been taken up. This country is about two or three issues right now.. making money and abortion/family values. We need to start thinking long term but it will take a crisis to make people understand this.

  • It doesn’t matter anymore who people want as president, just who Diebold’s executives feel should be.

  • I thought I’d share with you a dream I had recently, which doesn’t connect with the comments above, but does (in its own weird way) say something about the current state of the “national character.”

    In my dream, Bush was doing so badly in the polls that an “emergency commission” of top corporate executives was convened and in the end they “removed” Bush from office and replaced him with a Kelly Ripa-like woman named Camille. President Camille could not talk policy, and was no good for anything but cutting ribbons at bridge openings and smashing champagne bottles on brand-new ocean liners; but her bubbly effervescent personality won the hearts of America, and her being a vaguely liberal, pro-choice woman left the Democrats in disarray. Like Bush, the new President could do no more than cheerlead, but unlike Bush, his right-wing pandering and his brittle, boneheaded inarticulateness, she could mesmerize people with her cute, apolitical, telegenic tall tales. In short, she made America feel “good about itself” again, which is all America really wanted in the first place, while the nation’s REAL policy, of course, was being crafted behind the scenes by the same corporate heads that had installed her.

  • I really would like to think Americans are sick of spin and vapors. I really would like to believe in “Mr. Smith” and the other tough, wise and…fictional…characters who have talked straight and bucked the system. Rambo, Dirty Harry, etc. Americans like fictional characters most of all, and we hate policy. We want to have a beer with the president, watch the game with him, pick up chicks with him. Or we want to pray with him, sing the national anthem with him, tears in our eyes. We want to see him crack jokes and go “Aw shucks.”

    In other words, we don’t really want a leader. Just a character. Ronald Reagan was America’s dream, and since he left office, we haven’t been electing — we’ve been auditioning. Life imitates art. Bad art.

  • I guess I have to believe that Americans can and will vote us out of these horrible times–if a candidate emerges who are credible and Diebold allows. If I didn’t believe that, I’d board a plane for Canada right now. Bush didn’t win his first (s)election, and even the second was in doubt although the fear mongering was a successful stratergery for him. We need strong, straight-talking candidates who will fight relentlessly and visciously, if necessary, the swiftboaters and corporate press. I think that is what Americans long for. But Hillary and Biden and Dodd and Daschle and Kerry aint it. Aside from maybe (the new) Gore and maybe Wes Clark and Russ Feingold, Democrats just pussyfoot around, being nice and fair and good mannered, while the Republicans lie, cheat, steal and bludgeon their way into office. If in the end there are no real fighting Dems, there will be no power to change our depraved government.

  • Democrats need an issue other than the Republicans are a pack of crooks. Global warming doesn’t seem to me to be one that will resonate with the beer drinking, football fans. Only those forward looking types that worry about that sort of thing are likely to get excited. It has a built in backlash and readily debatable as just another liberal, anti industry issue. Industry is necessary and even the dumbest know that. It’s their jobs, as well as a tank of gas. The tank of gas seems to me to be a place where an issue can be raised that will get almost everyone’s attention.

    The GOP is now perceived as being in the pockets of big oil. The average person now believes that’s why we’re in Iraq and discount the WMD scam as jus that, a scam. Therefore a charge that they, Republicans are dragging their feet about, alternate fuels should stick. Enviornmental hazards, destruction of distant scenic tundra won’t. The average would quickly sacrifice the breath taking shore at Santa Barbra rather than wait in line at the gas station. Big oil has the horsepower to make that line happen when they like. We need a little competition for them. Gore appeals to a limited audience. Even scientists poo poo the notion that global warming is either unnatural or caused by industry. Global warming is an interesting topic of conversation but could be political suicide. The last thing the Democrats need is a call from the GOP to “get an issue.”

  • Enter More Neo-Cons – Stage Left

    ——-

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060509/ap_on_el_ge/democrats_security;_ylt=Am1miaDAq_iX6nw_U06SlNOWwv IE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

    “WASHINGTON – Tough-on-terrorism Democrats urged their party on Tuesday to put foreign policy ahead of political retribution in the fall elections, underscoring a divide between the party’s hawks and doves that could frame the 2008 presidential campaign.”

    “Simply lashing out in anger at the current administration doesn’t accomplish what we want,” said Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh,a likely candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bayh and another potential White House hopeful, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, spoke at an event sponsored by the moderate Progressive Policy Institute to promote its book, “With All Our Might,” a Democratic blueprint for fighting the war on terror.
    …
    “Barely under way, the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination will likely increase friction between the party’s anti-war base and hawkish leaders such as Bayh, Warner and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.”

    http://www.ppionline.org/

    It’s redundant to state the PPI fully supports the Iraqi operation, the Great Commission of ‘bringing democracy to the greater Middle East’, getting tougher on the ‘War On Terror’ by improved domestic police state technology, GATT- NAFTA-WTO global free trade (recent policy paper affirmation of support in early 2006). There’ll be some change in the emotional content and demographic targeting of the propaganda. For instance, the queers will parade openly in the White House, rather than staying in the closets as Karl Rove, Cannon and Jewish RNC Chairman Mehlman and their gaggle do now to keep the Christian Zionist leaders from appearing like the total failures they are to their sheeple supporters. A bit more in your face ‘whitey your going extinct’ stuff. About the only place they could get softer on immigration than Bush is by supporting multilingual versions of the National Anthem. And Jews in high places at the PPI…

    Yessirree bob. Absolutely vital to bring this sort of democracy and electoral choice to the Middle East.

  • You know, I followed that lead of Homer (thanks) and it’s very relevant here. The comments just go on and on. There’s no tally but there are hundreds, all shocked, horrified, speechless, etc., many very erudite and powerful, and of course some humor too. On a business website. I’ve been reading them for the last hour, and I’m absolutely certain there is a huge groundswell of revulsion verging on panic against this regime. I sincerely believe the existing administration will be totally thrown to the dogs in both elections – unless “national security” considerations intervene.

  • P.S. I predict a Gore/Clinton ticket (forgot to mention that). Looks nice. Kind of sweet. Are we auditioning?

  • Krugman: “But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don’t pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That’s a test of national character. I wonder whether we’ll pass.”

    Not sure that the national consciousness is going to be in line with the direction. Moving the will from living for the moment to living for the needs of future generations will be running against all the corporate, commercial, and global governmental interests operating on earth. For each of us individually, it will tear at ties that seduce us and bind us into equating freedom with our excessive use of resources and energy — the modernistic bargain.

    A truly green philosophy or conservation ethic has captured but a small minority who would really appreciate a leader like Gore who would make the environment the central organizing principle for our nation and the world. But, it is now certain, that all of the modern mega issues that plague mankind — over population, dependence on oil and coal, global warming, poverty, disease, environmental pollution, ecological degradation, mass migrations of peoples, unemployment, hellish megalopolises, terrorism, etc. — are best approached in an integrated world wide effort to enable man to live on earth in a sustainable manner while allowing wild nature to prosper, big time. Otherwise, we had better resign ourselves to witnessing our reckoning with failing to learn to live on earth. A sad and tragic end to the millions of generations who preceeded us. To what end, this democracy thing? To what end, this global venture? To what end, this tying up the destiny of the world in one package?

  • Goldilocks (#27),

    In October/November, 1996 I had (a href=”http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Animation/front/election.html”>this for the front page of my website.

  • My guess is that global warming will become a much “hotter” issue in the next year or so, making Al Gore look like a genius and a prophet. I would also guess that he is unlikely to make the same set of mistakes twice in terms of consultants and the manner in which he presents himself to the public.

    So, he continues to raise Americans’ awareness of what is likely to become the critical issue of the next decade and then he runs for President and wins.

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