I would strongly encourage everyone who reads this site to check out Al Gore’s speech in New York yesterday. It demonstrated the kind of aggressive, no nonsense intelligence that Gore showed occasionally, but not nearly often enough, during the last campaign. I try not to overuse the phrase, but this one’s a “must read.”
One of the things that always frustrated me about Gore’s approach in 2000 was his hesitancy. He was running not to lose, instead of running to win. Every controversial issue that arose saw Gore pause and search for a way not to make too many people upset. There was nothing bold about his strategy; everything was “play it safe.”
I’ve heard from a lot of people who know Gore that he not only recognized this once the election was over, but that he really regrets it. He was afraid to be himself and as a result, he came across as stiff, uncomfortable, and unsure of himself. Gore did well enough to beat Bush, but not enough to win by the margin he should have.
Yesterday we saw the Gore we always wanted. His comments at the MoveOn-organized event was not just a speech about Bush, it was an indictment of Bush’s approach to government. Gore’s remarks were forceful, articulate, and devastating.
I won’t regurgitate the whole speech here, but there one thing that caught my attention was Gore’s emphasis on the dishonesty with which Bush governs.
“The very idea of self-government depends upon honest and open debate as the preferred method for pursuing the truth and a shared respect for the rule of reason is the best way to establish the truth,” Gore said. “The Bush administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole process, and I think it’s partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren’t very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it. They and the members of groups that belong to their ideological coalition are true believers in each other’s agenda.”
He added, “[S]omething basic has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates about our future — allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have to get swept up in our enthusiasms. That last point is worth highlighting. Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we’re all used to that. I’ve even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty.
“Unfortunately, I think it is no longer possible to avoid the conclusion that what the country is dealing with in the Bush Presidency is the latter. That is really the nub of the problem — the common source for most of the false impressions that have been frustrating the normal and healthy workings of our democracy.”
This is remarkably harsh, yet entirely truthful, stuff here. Bush’s dishonesty, Gore argued, is actually undermining the democratic process and effecting our government at a systemic level. Gore alluded casually to the fact that the media labeled him as someone who would exaggerate during the campaign, but he carefully explained how these “rhetorical excesses” differ greatly from the Bush administration’s break with “basic honesty.”
And do you catch Gore’s reference to Bush “manipulating facts in service to a totalistic ideology”? Totalistic — what an interesting word choice. I remember from my political philosophy classes in college that academics would use similar — if not identical — language when referencing totalitarianism.
Like I said, harsh but true.
As for whether Gore is planning to use this speech to re-enter the process and launch another bid for the Dem nomination, Gore explained that he was speaking “not as a candidate for any office, but as an American citizen who loves my country.”
Elaine Kamarck, a Harvard political scientist who helped run Gore’s 2000 campaign, told the Washington Post that Gore’s speech was intended to provide a “road map” to the Dem presidential candidates as to how he thinks they should go after Bush. It’s not a bad idea.
Before I go, one last quote from Gore that I really liked:
“For eight years, the Clinton-Gore Administration gave this nation honest budget numbers; an economic plan with integrity that rescued the nation from debt and stagnation; honest advocacy for the environment; real compassion for the poor; a strengthening of our military — as recently proven — and a foreign policy whose purposes were elevated, candidly presented and courageously pursued, in the face of scorched-earth tactics by the opposition. That is also a form of honor and integrity, and not every administration in recent memory has displayed it.”
Damn straight.