Larry Gude
02-27-2007, 12:02 PM
...Richard Cohen of the Post is one of my absolute favorite columnists. I love George Will because of his intelligence and reason. I love Cohen for the exact same thing...only different. Richard is, almost without fail, without reason. The only time he plainly puts two and two together is when Jesse Jackson attacks Jews.
Today; 'An Oscar for his second act.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022601251.html
I'm gonna just take this paragraph by paragraph, for my own entertainment.
Now, somebody ought to make a movie about Al Gore. I would call it "An Uncomplaining Life."
I'd call it "Prince Albert and his Hobbies"
The movie would be about a man who did not quit, who came off the canvas after a painfully close election -- he won the popular vote, after all -- who accepted defeat graciously and tried to unite the nation, who returned to the consuming passion of his earlier days, the environment, and spoke endlessly on the topic, almost always for free, who starred in a documentary based on his speech and who Sunday night, before a billion or so people, won an Academy Award for his effort. This may or may not be a stepping stone to the presidency, but Gore gives us all a lesson on how to live one's life.
This is where Cohen gets me going. Gore decidedly did not accept defeat graciously. He did, at first, and promptly took it back, initiating the germination of an ugly, divisive seed of discontent that will last our nation at least a generation. And lost anyway.
If Gore's life is a model for us all, then most of us need richer parents. And if the environment mattered so much to him he would use more science and less Hollywood in his 'quest' to protect it. If it so important to him, how could go about creating as much reason to marginalize the issue through his never ending chicken little-ism as reason to take him seriously?
Next.
Now it is his jaunty, frat-boy opponent who cannot unite the country. Now it is the towel-snapper, the rancher who does not ride horses, the decider who decides wrongly and whose approval ratings are like the temperature of a dead man. Now it is George W. Bush that the nation does not trust or believe -- and this has and will cost us plenty. What if Bush is right about Iran? What if the Iranians are really helping to kill Americans in Iraq? Whatever you may think of the Iraq war, it is impermissible for anyone to kill Americans and yet it may be happening and may continue because the president is widely disbelieved. Gore could not have gotten us into this.
Richard kicks it up a notch. Gore COULD NOT have gotten us into this? Gore could never take military action to depose a tyrant and liberate a people? He didn't seem to have a problem liberating Kuwaiti's once he'd been promised some prime time TV to cover his grave and solemn decision on the floor of the senate. And what's with the frat boy bit? Who is the frat boy, W or, more accurately, Bill Clinton, one of the greatest President of all time, as described by Gore?
Gore would not have taken the United States to war in Iraq. He would have finished the job in Afghanistan -- it was al-Qaeda and its Taliban enablers who were responsible for the attacks on us on Sept. 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein, no matter how vile he might have been. Gore would not have dealt with the Iranians and the North Koreans in such a juvenile fashion -- axis of evil, after all -- and all over the world, wherever you and I went, we would not detect such anger toward America. The last time I saw Gore was at a screening of his now-acclaimed movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." I wrote at the time that, on paper at least, he was the near-perfect Democratic presidential candidate -- right on the war, above all. This observation, hardly original with me, is being echoed elsewhere, and it would be impossible for Gore to ignore it. Jimmy Carter said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he thought Gore ought to run and had told Gore so insistently. "He almost told me the last time I called, 'Don't call me anymore,' " Carter said. What Gore told me was something similar: "I think there are other ways to serve."
Now I'm in full Cohen fever. Why bother arguing Gore, the man who doesn't invade or CAN NOT get us into messes, would have 'finished' the job in Afghanistan? Why not just declare Gore would have prevented 9/11 in the first place? Why not just state that with President Gore even Saddam, no matter how vile, would have been LESS vile? As far as that goes, does anyone in Gore-world qualify as being vile enough to be dealt with militarily, besides a bunch of 13th century religious fundamentalists who hit women with sticks when not dressed by the code?
And just how would have Lord Gore dealt with Iran and North Korea? Scolded them into international compliance on environmental grounds? Thus everyone, the globe over, would love us so like they did when they were celebrating US black eyes under Veep Gore, from the Cole, to the first tower attack to the Kohbar and embassy bombings and Somalia? Right about the war, indeed. Making movies is one thing. Actually having a say, a vote, is quite another. Was Gore also right about Katrina as well in that nature can be quite difficult? Wait, we make storms, right? Hmm... Anyway, I do agree with Cohen that Gore is the near perfect Democrat candidate, in oh so many ways. Wait. I forget the 'ic'.
With an Oscar in his fist and triumph on his face, Al Gore is a man you can tell your kid about. That, maybe, is even better than being president.
How can that be? How do I tell my kids that we would not be struggling In Iraq, that Osama would be dead and Saddam alive, that North Korea and Iran would be our pals and that Mother Nature would stop trying to kill us if only we'd had a few more votes in Florida 2000 and then tell them it's best that St. Albert is making hypocritical fiction movies instead?
:jameo:
Nice work there, Richard.
Today; 'An Oscar for his second act.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022601251.html
I'm gonna just take this paragraph by paragraph, for my own entertainment.
Now, somebody ought to make a movie about Al Gore. I would call it "An Uncomplaining Life."
I'd call it "Prince Albert and his Hobbies"
The movie would be about a man who did not quit, who came off the canvas after a painfully close election -- he won the popular vote, after all -- who accepted defeat graciously and tried to unite the nation, who returned to the consuming passion of his earlier days, the environment, and spoke endlessly on the topic, almost always for free, who starred in a documentary based on his speech and who Sunday night, before a billion or so people, won an Academy Award for his effort. This may or may not be a stepping stone to the presidency, but Gore gives us all a lesson on how to live one's life.
This is where Cohen gets me going. Gore decidedly did not accept defeat graciously. He did, at first, and promptly took it back, initiating the germination of an ugly, divisive seed of discontent that will last our nation at least a generation. And lost anyway.
If Gore's life is a model for us all, then most of us need richer parents. And if the environment mattered so much to him he would use more science and less Hollywood in his 'quest' to protect it. If it so important to him, how could go about creating as much reason to marginalize the issue through his never ending chicken little-ism as reason to take him seriously?
Next.
Now it is his jaunty, frat-boy opponent who cannot unite the country. Now it is the towel-snapper, the rancher who does not ride horses, the decider who decides wrongly and whose approval ratings are like the temperature of a dead man. Now it is George W. Bush that the nation does not trust or believe -- and this has and will cost us plenty. What if Bush is right about Iran? What if the Iranians are really helping to kill Americans in Iraq? Whatever you may think of the Iraq war, it is impermissible for anyone to kill Americans and yet it may be happening and may continue because the president is widely disbelieved. Gore could not have gotten us into this.
Richard kicks it up a notch. Gore COULD NOT have gotten us into this? Gore could never take military action to depose a tyrant and liberate a people? He didn't seem to have a problem liberating Kuwaiti's once he'd been promised some prime time TV to cover his grave and solemn decision on the floor of the senate. And what's with the frat boy bit? Who is the frat boy, W or, more accurately, Bill Clinton, one of the greatest President of all time, as described by Gore?
Gore would not have taken the United States to war in Iraq. He would have finished the job in Afghanistan -- it was al-Qaeda and its Taliban enablers who were responsible for the attacks on us on Sept. 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein, no matter how vile he might have been. Gore would not have dealt with the Iranians and the North Koreans in such a juvenile fashion -- axis of evil, after all -- and all over the world, wherever you and I went, we would not detect such anger toward America. The last time I saw Gore was at a screening of his now-acclaimed movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." I wrote at the time that, on paper at least, he was the near-perfect Democratic presidential candidate -- right on the war, above all. This observation, hardly original with me, is being echoed elsewhere, and it would be impossible for Gore to ignore it. Jimmy Carter said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he thought Gore ought to run and had told Gore so insistently. "He almost told me the last time I called, 'Don't call me anymore,' " Carter said. What Gore told me was something similar: "I think there are other ways to serve."
Now I'm in full Cohen fever. Why bother arguing Gore, the man who doesn't invade or CAN NOT get us into messes, would have 'finished' the job in Afghanistan? Why not just declare Gore would have prevented 9/11 in the first place? Why not just state that with President Gore even Saddam, no matter how vile, would have been LESS vile? As far as that goes, does anyone in Gore-world qualify as being vile enough to be dealt with militarily, besides a bunch of 13th century religious fundamentalists who hit women with sticks when not dressed by the code?
And just how would have Lord Gore dealt with Iran and North Korea? Scolded them into international compliance on environmental grounds? Thus everyone, the globe over, would love us so like they did when they were celebrating US black eyes under Veep Gore, from the Cole, to the first tower attack to the Kohbar and embassy bombings and Somalia? Right about the war, indeed. Making movies is one thing. Actually having a say, a vote, is quite another. Was Gore also right about Katrina as well in that nature can be quite difficult? Wait, we make storms, right? Hmm... Anyway, I do agree with Cohen that Gore is the near perfect Democrat candidate, in oh so many ways. Wait. I forget the 'ic'.
With an Oscar in his fist and triumph on his face, Al Gore is a man you can tell your kid about. That, maybe, is even better than being president.
How can that be? How do I tell my kids that we would not be struggling In Iraq, that Osama would be dead and Saddam alive, that North Korea and Iran would be our pals and that Mother Nature would stop trying to kill us if only we'd had a few more votes in Florida 2000 and then tell them it's best that St. Albert is making hypocritical fiction movies instead?
:jameo:
Nice work there, Richard.