Thursday, March 01, 2007

The prophet Al, peace be upon him

I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I really do. But I am at a loss to know how there can actually be people who don't find Al Gore to sanctimonious and insufferable. He produces this hysterical academy award winning power point which takes something that many people agree on and exaggerates in a way for which there is virtually no evidence. This qualifies him as some kind of prophet.

Maybe I could understand that. Isaiah was also a pretty excitable guy, but I can't imagine that he spent the day decrying the persecution of Judah and then cozying up to the Babylonians at night. Al calls for the unwashed of the world to live in tiny houses and walk to work and then gets on a private jet and lives in Nashville's version of the Taj Mahal - when he's not at one of his other cribs. The earth just looks like a Big Mac to Al.

The idea that its ok for his family to exceed the energy consumption of half of the member
-states of the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission because he buys carbon credits is odd in at least two ways. First, one would not expect a champion of the little guy to claim that he can sin freely by paying indulgences (and-ironically- perhaps with money earned by his enviro-jeremiad). Second, it turns out that carbon credits are too cheap to have much impact. Not only does Gore want to buy virtue, but he wants a bargain.

Maureen Dowd recently quoted Gore as saying that his great failing as a politician was that he was always ahead of his time, what with inventing the internet and the lockbox. The most amazing thing about him is that he probably really believes that.

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