Walter Russell Mead takes Al Gore to task for failure to live the lifestyle that corresponds to the rather hysterical predictions he has made about global warming … that is caused by the Gore lifestyle. In doing so, he blames Gore for the failure of the Greens to advance their cause. In the end, we don’t know whether Mead is like the atheist who mocks the fallen evangelist or the believer who is angry that his idol has feet of clay.
But Mead is wrong in blaming the failure of the Global Warming crowd on its spokesman, Gore. Gore is simply a convenient symbol to people who never bought into the hyperbole or who had the scales removed from their eyes when opponents of the theory exposed its flaws. No thinking person took Gore, a failed theology student, for a scientific guru. He was always a front man, as politicians most often are. His language was so Manichean that it was repellent. In his Rolling Stone article he says:
“In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.”
I was waiting for some indication that this was a bit of self-effacing hyperbole, but it was not. This is actually Al Gore in his entire Green splendor: the purest good fighting the basest evil. This is not a scientist making his case: this was Billy Sunday blasting the Devil incarnate.
Mead begins his essay with:
“It must be as perplexing to his many admirers as it is frustrating to himself that a man of Vice President Gore’s many talents, great skills and strong beliefs is one of the most consistent losers in American politics.”
It doesn’t take much more than that single sentence in that Rolling Stone article to cause you to ask not why he’s such a loser but why he has so many admirers.
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