I Adore Gore (Part Eight Zillion in an Ongoing Series)

By now, hopefully everyone is familiar with Gore’s recent firebrand speech, bemoaning the current state of America and the media, and reminding us, with allusions like “The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as ‘the refeudalization of the public sphere,’” that once upon a time, there were intelligent, thoughtful, interesting people at the helm of this country. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s here.

I know I go on about Gore a lot, but it remains one of my greatest disappointments that he was never my president. What everyone else sees in him now as they comment “Where was this Al Gore in 2000?” I have always seen. We bore witness to one of the great scam jobs of the new media in 2000—Gore was no more the robotic bore he was made out to be than Bush was the good ol’ boy Everyman that he was made out to be. We were hoodwinked, swindled—not just in Florida, not just by the Supreme Court in their unctuous decision to appoint Bush as president, but by the media, throughout the course of the campaign. This is who Al Gore is, and who he has always been.

So it with not a small amount of excitement that I read he may well be considering another run after all.

Despite the previous denials we've reported, Washington Whispers has talked to friends of Al Gore who still think "the former veep will be the next president."

One political strategist and fundraiser "is opening a bid to get Gore into the race. Gore friends see his recent political and business moves as proof he's preparing to run. Allies say that in speeches, Gore has found his voice to address domestic and world issues. And in raising money for his Current TV network, which targets the critical youth market, Big Al has built an issue base and donor network that's competitive with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's. Our source -- a top aide in the previous Bush administration -- is planning meetings with Gore's team to push an early entry while Clinton runs for re-election in New York. It doesn't end there: The Gorebots want him to pick Sen. Barack Obama, the youthful Illinois African-American, as his No. 2."

I think a Gore-Obama ticket would be great, although I’d like a Gore-Edwards ticket even better. At this point, I’d settle just for having Gore in the primaries, which I wholly believe would elevate all the candidates to a level more befitting the passion we expect them to have.