Gore back in media spotlight
He?s back!?After years of wandering in the wilderness of academia and entertainment, Al Gore seems to be everywhere in the media these days.
Like the mythical phoenix, a bird resembling an eagle that lived for 500 years, then burned itself on a pyre, from whose ashes another phoenix arose, Mr. Gore is in the midst of his own resurrection.
The vehicle for the ?new and improved? version of Mr. Gore is his current, critically acclaimed, and controversial documentary film, ?An Inconvenient Truth.??I haven?t seen the movie yet, but I have read several reviews of it, mostly favorable.?They highlight Mr. Gore?s full-scale assaults on the perils and pitfalls of bad environmental policies in recent years.
A full-length film with Al Gore lecturing us on environmental policy? At first blush, that sounds like the latest cure for insomnia.?
Maybe, maybe not.?All governmental policies have consequences, good and bad.? Our long-standing failure to fully grasp the gravity of global warming is a case in point.?With polar ice caps falling and sea levels rising, more and more areas of the world are in harm?s way. Meanwhile, the hurricane season is here again, with memories of Katrina fresh in our hearts and minds.?So, much of what Mr. Gore has to say seems to be resonating with his audience.
Mr. Gore?s message, though frightening, is not really all that new.?He has been sounding it for about three decades, from the time he was first elected to Congress in 1976. His book, ?Earth in the Balance,? published in 1992, was popular and prophetic.?It was also controversial, with several critics claiming Mr. Gore overstated the gravity of the threat.?Now, some critics are claiming the same thing about his movie.
I?ll reserve judgment on that point until I see the movie for myself.
However, I must confess to a healthy degree of skepticism on the timing of ?An Inconvenient Truth.??Is Mr. Gore morphing from a modern-day Cassandra, who foretells evil events, to a modern-day Moses, who leads his party out of the desert and into the political promised land of Democratic Congressional power in 2006 and presidential power in 2008?
Stranger things have happened.? Remember Richard Nixon??He arose, phoenix-like, from the nadir of political defeat in 1960, to the zenith of political victory in 1968 and 1972.? And don?t forget Bill Clinton, the so-called ?Comeback Kid? in 1992 and 1996.
Hard-core Gore supporters are positively giddy over the media?s new-found fascination with the man they often ridiculed for his mummified mien and soporific speechifying. Now comes Al, the audience-rouser, peering wisely from the covers of national and international magazines and newspapers, appearing on television?s ?Saturday Night Live,? and artfully dodging the pointed questions of George Stephanopoulos and others on the Sunday talk shows.
So what is this all about, Al??Is this latest reincarnation just a continuation of your crusade on moral issues that transcend politics? Or is it the opening round in the battle for your presidential nomination and election in 2008??
Stay tuned for the truth.
Thomas B. Vaughn is a professor at Motlow College and co-host of the radio show ?Viewpoints,? which airs on 91.3 FM, WCPI.