Oct 12, 2007 
I knew our Al would win the Nobel Prize. Just think — he’s won an Oscar, an Emmy, an a Nobel Prize in the same year. How cool is that?
Of course, as the Talking Dog says,
Notwithstanding that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences liked him enough to award him an Oscar, and now, the Norwegian committee charged with the prize has awarded former Vice-President Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in publicizing the dangers of climate change, the American press corps will still tell us that Gore is stiff, wooden and boring, sighs too much, and of course (wait for it…) he’s fat. Let’s face it… notwithstanding that he is a happily married man (and a decent man) who would never dream of such a thing, with an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize in his pocket… is there any doubt that this man could get laid anywhere he wants, anywhere in the world? Well, almost anywhere, I suppose, as the Washington press corps would still tell us of his made-up inadequacies (inadequacies they made up, of course, because (1) they don’t like him, (2) their corporate masters don’t like him and (3) Mr. Scaife doesn’t like him.)
And while he could be getting laid anywhere, is there anyone (who isn’t mentally defective, such as a huge portion of the American electorate) who wouldn’t rather have a beer with this guy than, say, the current idiot who infests our White House (who purportedly doesn’t even drink!!! Hah, press corps? You’d “rather have a beer with” a MAN WHO DOESN’T DRINK? WTF kind of fun is THAT??? Hah, press corps?)
Today all the rightie bloggers are flopping around in high derision mode. Bleep ‘em.
I will say that the Right has done a good job planting disinformation in the press about climate change. As Mark Lynas writes,
Where does science end and politics begin? On climate change this is a particularly thorny question. For over a decade now we have seen a heated and increasingly bitter debate between environmentalists and sceptics about to what extent the globe is warming, who is responsible, and what (if anything) we ought to do about it.
Seemingly presented with two sets of “experts” and with no idea which side is telling the truth, the lay public is left confused, as opinion polls show. The real truth – that all the major scientific questions about global warming have long been settled, and largely support the long-standing environmentalist position – remains obscured by continuing political trench warfare and media debate. This failure to reflect the political debate on global warming, despite its largely accurate portrayal of climate science, is why Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, was dismissed as “one-sided” by the high court.
That is not to say that Gore got everything 100% right. … All of these points, however, are trivial details in the context of the main argument of the film, which is unambiguously correct in its portrayal of mainstream scientific understanding of climate change.
And there is speculation whether the Nobel Prize will inspire Al to get into the presidential race. I don’t think he will, for the same reasons Eric Pooley gives at Time –
He put himself in position to win the Nobel by committing to an issue bigger than himself — the fight to save the planet. If he runs for president now, he’ll be hauling himself back up onto that dusty old pedestal, signaling that he is, after all, the most important thing in his world. Sure, he’d say he was doing it because he feels a moral obligation to intervene in a time of unparalleled crisis. But running for president is by definition an act of hubris, and Gore has spent the past couple of years defying his ego and sublimating himself to a larger goal. Running for president would mean returning to a role he’d already transcended. He’d turn into — again — just another politician, when a lot of people thought he might be something better than that.
But oh, I wish he would run. If he declared I think he’d be the front-runner overnight. I’d endorse him, anyway.
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