For those of you who didn't see Al Gore on Leno last night, allow me to paraphrase the following exchange:
Leno: So now that you're a big film star, has your life changed at all?
Gore: Well, Lindsey Lohan and I aren't speaking.
Leno: Really, why?
Gore: She knows what she did.
Friday, June 09, 2006
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5 comments:
Every time I start to be hopeful about Al Gore, he lets me down all over again. Before the jokes started, Leno asked him if he didn't find it creepy the way people were gloating about the Zarqawi killing. Now maybe Leno was just trying to set him up, but the fact remains Gore came off as insensitive in comparison to Jay Leno, of all people. He looked puzzled for a moment. (Why are we talking about this?) Then he said something to the effect that Zarqawi was a bad person and he was glad he was gone. (Can we get back to my scripted comic bits, please?)
In other words, he looked like just another politician when we needed more. Zarqawi was a real monster. But using F-16s as summary execution machines is appalling. It's all about politics, not justice. It makes a mockery of the rule of law. It hasn't worked for the Israelis, and it's not working for us.
It's as if, after speaking out freely for a few years, now that Gore is clearly starting to run again, he's also starting to listen to the same consultants -- "don't say anything that might be used against you" -- that doomed him the first time.
MG, you make the mistake of thinking that Gore feels the same way you do, and you therefore assume insincerity where it doesn't necessarily exist.
My guess about Gore's feelings would be that in a war, it's fair play to bomb the house of your enemy's leader (or one of them, anyway).
What if it were Bin Laden? Or if we had had the opportunity to bomb Milosevic?
Because he disagrees with the war's purpose doesn't mean that every action our forces take must be decried.
My guess about Gore's feelings would be that in a war, it's fair play to bomb the house of your enemy's leader (or one of them, anyway).
I wonder how many people would agree with that if the shoe were on the other foot -- that is, if Zarqawi had tried to bomb the White House?
Setting up individual evildoers as personifications of the enemy and taking them out from the air accomplishes nothing. Ask the Israelis. If it worked, they would have had peace years ago. A bomb just makes a martyr of your enemy (and usually kills innocent bystanders). A trial exposes their crimes and delegitimizes them.
Unfortunately, you're probably right that Gore thinks there's nothing wrong with the bombing.
But, hey -- he's better than any of the alternatives. I voted twice for Clinton, despite his executing someone who was brain damaged. I can certainly vote (a second time) for Gore.
Wellll...Israel is not at "war" and we are. Hey, I'm just saying that that's what I believe the mindset to be. And unfortunately that kind of distinction makes all the difference in this world we live in.
But I agree, it would have been much better to capture him and try him. The Iraqis might feel differently about that, though, since it would have been a considerable ongoing problem for them.
Didn't someone say something once about price of freedom blahblah eternal vigilance?
Indeed.
madison guy, I don't think I understand your point. An air strike is too vulgar a gesture? It's not fair or just? Do you view Zarqawi as a criminal or as an enemy of the United States?
Asking a presidential candidate to come out against air strikes: ugh. It's one thing to criticize the current Administration. It's quite another to call into question military objectives or tactics.
I don't know what you'd expect Gore to say in such a situation. As to the question asked -- is the gloating creepy -- I'd have asked Leno back: uh, what gloating? Are you asking me about Fox coverage? I don't watch it.
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