In Al Gore’s film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, much is made of Gore’s new found demeanor. Yes he’s a lot smoother and passionate. It helps that the camera captures him more intimately, and that he had directorial control over how he is portrayed. Contrast this to a hostile media determined in 2000 to make Gore look as bad as possible. Corporate media made Gore’s I-discovered-Love-Canal, I-invented-the-Internet, and Love-Story-was-written-about-me remarks look buffoonish instead of the remarkable half-truths they really were.
Juxtapose Gore’s role with George W’s microphone gaff at the G-8.
Not just his expletive, not just his eating with his mouth open and talking with his mouth full, but the inanity of his statements. “Syria has got to get Hezbolla to stop this shit” duh. (See a GREAT musical lampoon at the Huffington Post!)
What about his earlier observation: “Russia’s big. So’s China.” Wow.
Our media made hay with Bush’s expletive. The world press came to the bigger conclusion. Idiot. The British saw and heard their Tony Blair, normally of impeccable intellect, play lap dog to a yapping idiot.
To compare Bush and Gore reminds me of the 2000 presidential debates when it was clear as day that Bush was Edward E. Neuman to Gore’s everyman. Bush was Lilliputian.
Yet when the cameras went out to “spin alley” to consult the pundits, wee conservative dweebs told us giddily that Bush had won.