Gore Campaign Up to the Media

Here we have Fineman on Gore, a nice piece about a guy who would have done a great job for our country. Unfortunately for Gore and the country, he won in 2000--but a variety of evil forces conspired to turn that victory into utter disaster for the world.

Terrorism, global warming, economic strife, massive corruption--those are just a few of the things that come to mind.

Gore danced around the truth in 2000, knowning that Carter, who did force us to look at the truth, made for a disastrous President. Gore knew that was a way to lose. Reagan showed that Americans didn't want the truth. They wanted to feel good about themselves.

But Gore was also wary of talking up his own accomplishments, largely because the media wouldn't give him any room to be right about things. The internet is something that, in many ways, he did "invent", at least through shepherding the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the internet boom. For that, he was roasted to a crisp. So, not wanting to talk about the depressing realities of global warming, trying to distance himself from Clinton, and being "discouraged" from talking about his own accomplishments, he was reduced to listening to his advisors on earth tones and other minutiae.

Now, we all adore Gore because of the crappy alternative we ended up with. We all want Gore to run in 2008. But when it comes down to it, would his run be any different than it was in 2000? Wouldn't Chris Matthews continue to roast him instead of admitting he was wrong about the whole thing? Wouldn't the media remember how much it disliked him?

Gore is about to reach the status that Carter has established since his presidency ended. Of course, Gore can be remembered even more fondly than Carter, because he doesn't have gas lines or Iranian hostages to haunt him. What's not to like about that?

When it comes right down to it, he's not dumb and he won't want to live through the hell that was his 2000 campaign again. Only people like Fineman can tell us if it's going to be different this time around. It's up to the media to make him run again, as only they can decide how they'll treat him. Perhaps we'll get a glimpse of this in the coming weeks.