AL GORE IS A CHUMP, PART TWO

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1/31/00 - Touche!
The Now This Weblog has encapsulated the Gore campaign strategy with the following fictional exchange:

Gore: My opponent's plan includes provisions for federal agents to break into your homes, steal your children and eat them. Also, they will kick your pets when you're not looking.
Bradley: The things you say are obviously not true, and you must be aware of that. Why are you lying?
Gore: I'm saddened by the personal nature of your negative attacks, Bill.

1/30/00 - Busted!
CBS News has uncovered documents from earlier Gore campaigns in which staffers pleaded with the then-Presidential candidate to stop "stretching the truth" and "exaggerating" on the campaign trail. Sound familiar?

1/29/00 - The Post tackles Gore's Lies.
Today's edition of the Washington Post examines anew Al Gore's record of prevarication and distortion.

1/29/00 - Say It Ain't So!
Howie Carr of the Boston Herald tries to come to terms with his own personal nightmare - a possible Gore Presidency.

1/28/00 - Gore's Distortions Get a New Look
Perhaps chagrined by yet another collective rush-to-judgement by the chattering class, some press outlets - namely The Boston Globe and Reuters - have been re-scrutinizing Gore's tendency to distort and inflate. Al Gore is also taken to task for misrepresenting both the number of Bradley's gay delegates in NY and the context of an oft-repeated Bradley quote.

1/27/00 - Al Gore's Great Abortion Flip-Flop
Matthew Rees of the Weekly Standard, in an article from October of 1999, delved into both Al Gore's strong pro-life record and his misrepresentations about it ever since he made it to the big-time.

1/27/00 - Al Gore's Free Ride
In today's column, Deborah Orin of the New York Post wonders why the national press has recently given Al Gore such a free pass.

1/27/00 - At the buzzer...Swish!
For long-suffering Bradley supporters chafing under the yoke of Al Gore's lies and distortions, last night's debate was a cathartic Yawp! to the heavens. In the most combative Democratic debate to date, Senator Bradley finally took off the gloves and called out Al Gore for his reprehensible campaign tactics. A nonpartisan focus group study conducted by Speak Out!, who also found Al Gore to be the clear winner of the now-infamous Iowa farm debate, shows that Senator Bradley scored a decisive victory! Indeed, Al Gore even scored lower than all the Republican candidates, and those in the study who were sure they'd vote for the Vice-President dropped from 43% to 29%.

1/27/00 - Al Gore's Cynical Strategy.
This week's Newsweek story on Al Gore's recent resurgence carries an interesting excerpt that lays bare Al Gore's cynical, reprehensible strategy. According to the article, "Gore assembled a team of the toughest consultants in town. He knew what he wanted: a posse of the 'Unforgiven,' who care more about winning than being liked. Gore's strategy was simple...if [Bradley] was taken apart, Democratic voters could only come home to Al." Once again, in true "triangulation" form, Al Gore has taken the Democratic vote for granted.

1/26/00 - A Day in the Life of the "Solicitor-in-Chief"
The Boston Globe has delved into Al Gore's tendency to help out his lobbyist friends at the expense of American public policy. In one case, Al Gore held up a bill that would allow South Africans suffering and dying from AIDS access to expensive American drugs. Two close friends of Gore were lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry against the bill, and guess who Al Gore sided with? James Love, Director of the Consumer Project on Technology has deemed Gore's stance "morally repugnant."

1/25/00 - The Weed Story Breaks
Amid the coverage of the Iowa caucus, the Washington Post, the New York Post, Reuters, and the Associated Press penned stories on Al Gore's rumored daily weed habit. The Tennessean, the paper which Gore and Warnecke worked for at the time, has initiated their own investigation. When this newspaper asked Warnecke about the frequency of Gore's use, he stated, "[It was] More than 100. More than 200. More than I can remember. It seemed like all the time we were together we were smoking." In response to reporters' questions on the subject, Gore denied the allegations, refused to comment on his relationship with John Warnecke, and stated, "It's old news." In an aside worthy of fellow youthful transgressors Henry Hyde and George W. Bush, Gore remarked, "When I was young, I did things young people do. When I grew up, I put away childish things." Whether Gore's answer and the extent of his prevarications will be further delved into in the week before the New Hampshire Primary will depend heavily on the caprices and attention span of the national press.

1/24/00 - Al Gore's Leadership Deficit
The New York Times Magazine offers a telling quote by a "Gore strategist" in this past week's cover story. "'We used to say, in the late 80's, if you don't like the issues terrain, change it,' one Gore strategist said. 'In the late 90's, you can't do it. Voters don't have the patience and, frankly, they don't have the attention span. You have to talk about them.' If Bradley wants to talk about race, he shrugged, 'Fine.'" Writer James Bennett concludes in his article that this remark indicates "a dismayingly reductive approach to the possibilities of modern presidential politics, one that exchanges the roles of leader and led."

1/23/00 - Al Gore, Foe of Affirmative Action
While Al Gore tries to portray himself as an avid protector of Affirmative Action, former Clinton insider George Stephanopoulos tells a different story. In All Too Human (p. 208-210), Stephanopoulos explains how Gore's Reinventing Government task force aimed to "abolish the affirmative action guidelines that helped blacks, women, veterans, and other minorities break into the business of government contracting." In the ensuing debate that led to Stephanopoulo's "worst fight ever with the Vice-President," Al Gore tried to pull rank and pretend that the President had already signed off on ending affirmative action. Stephanopoulos went to the President, who eventually reviewed the task force's suggestion and put an end to Gore's plan. Naturally, in another example of his endless capacity for duplicity, the Vice-President has now completely disavowed this earlier plan to end racial preferences.

1/23/00 - Gore the Weed Hound, Take 2
John C. Warnecke, the longtime Gore friend and supporter who spoke with DRCNet about Vice-President's drug history and the spiked Newsweek story last week, has given a follow-up interview to Salon Political correspondent Jake Tapper. Says Warnecke, who according to Newsweek comforted Al and Tipper during their Vietnam disillusionment period, "this lie [downplaying and refuting Gore's weed habit] was getting to me...And I felt weak. I felt emasculated by Al. That Al, my good friend, would do this to me. Ask me to lie. And then not talk to me for 10 years...he hasn't called me since the day that he asked me to stonewall in 1988. And here I've been holding this lie up. I lied to the New York Times; I was in tears when I lied to them. And when my [second] wife died, I didn't get a letter or a note from him."

1/20/00 - On Top of Old Smokey
In a forthcoming biography that has been delayed from January to March and a Newsweek story that was set to print this coming week and killed for unknown reasons, longtime Gore friend and Gore supporter John C. Warnecke disclosed that the Vice-President smoked marijuana much more frequently than he has claimed, even up to the week he declared his candidacy for Senate. "We smoked more than once," says Warnecke, "more than a few times, we smoked a lot. We smoked in his car, in his house, we smoked in his parents' house, in my house… we smoked on weekends. We smoked a lot." Note: I have absolutely nothing -- nada, zip, zero -- against frequent recreational use of marijuana. I do have a problem, however, with (A) Al Gore lying about the frequency of his use when (B) the Clinton-Gore administration has incarcerated a record number of nonviolent drug users, including 682,885 people for marijuana (88% of those for simple possession). I also know enough about politics to know that (C) somebody from the Gore camp bullied Newsweek (and perhaps Houghton-Mifflin, the publishers of the forthcoming book by Newsweek Washington writer Bill Turque) into punting the story to after the crucial Democratic primaries. To my mind, recreational drug use is not even close to a sin.. Lying about it while perpetuating a $20 billion war on your own citizens for actions you fully and frequently engaged in is an absolutely reprehensible deed (but sadly fully indicative of the timid, insincere leadership style we can expect from an Al Gore administration.)

1/18/00 - Monitoring Al
Godfrey Sperling, the venerable head of the Christian Science Monitor, wonders aloud about the electability of Albert Gore.

1/13/00 - Did I say that?
The New York Times has delved into an old lie by candidate Gore in 1992 concerning a promise to shut down a new incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio if elected. Seven year later, the incinerator churns on, the cancer rate for the county is 33% higher, and Al Gore still claims to be Mr. Environment.

1/13/00 - Talking Until It Hurts
John Harris of the Washington Post explores at length Al Gore's tendency to constantly "flirt with the next faux-pas."

1/13/00 - Clinton? Never heard of Him
The title of Los Angeles Times writer James Gerstenzang's piece says it all: "Despite Big Lead in Iowa, Gore struggles for Identity."

1/7/00 - Al Gore on the Abortion Issue.
Bradley supporter Greg Stroud recently posted an interesting comment in the Fray over at Slate that I thought I would reprint in full. Check it out:

In last night's debate, Gore argued that "The country deserves a president who, when he makes a mistake, is willing to acknowledge it and willing to learn from it." Yet, Gore has never admitted his long, and strong Anti-Abortion record which stretched into the mid-1980s. In July of 1987, Gore wrote these words: "I have consistently opposed federal funding of abortions. In my opinion, it is wrong to spend federal funds for what is arguably the taking of a human life. It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong. I hope that some day we will see a drop in the outrageously large numbers of abortions which currently take place…I share your belief that innocent human life must be protected, and I am committed to furthering this goal.” (10/99 Weekly Standard) According to the National Right to Life Committee, as a member of the House Gore voted 84% of the time against the Pro-Choice position. (AP/Richmond Times-Dispatch, 1/6). In July 1984, Gore supported an ammendment by Rep. Mark Siljander (GOP) which would have given the "unborn" protection under the Civil Rights Act from the moment of conception. Yet, Gore has consistently denied any change of heart. Will Gore live up to his own words?

1/7/00 - The Gore Campaign Plays the Race Card.
Outspoken Gore Campaign Manager Donna Brazile has outraged Colin Powell, JC Watts and other GOP African-Americans by asserting that "they'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them." She neglected to mention that the universally well-regarded General Powell works full-time promoting volunteer organizations aimed at feeding, clothing, sheltering, and helping the poor. Powell responded, "Let's not start the new century by playing the polarizing race card." With Al Gore and his cronies, all bets are off.

1/7/00 - "We Have a Big Garden..."
John Carlson of the Des Moines Register relates how, when not complaining about the Iowa cold, Al Gore likes to brag about his farm. When asked what he grows on said farm, "We have a big garden...(awkward silence)...that's really about it." Carlson concludes that "if we'd been in Houston [Gore] would have told us he's an astronaut."

1/5/00 - Gore High on Sighs.
The New York Post takes Gore to task for his habit of continually sighing during debates, comparing it to George Bush staring at his watch in 1992.

1/5/00 - Dr. Bradley or Dr. Gore? In today's Washington Post, John Holahan and Len M. Nichols, two senior analysts at the Urban Institute, compare and contrast Senator Bradley's and Al Gore's health plans. Here's what they have to say:

Gore appears to have concluded that substantially expanding health insurance coverage is not a major national priority. All of his measures, taken together, would expand coverage only modestly... Who would win the most under Gore's vision? Parents and children who would be made eligible for public programs. Who is left out? The working low-income people who are struggling to cover their families now, and those who have decided they can't afford private insurance but who make too much money to qualify for public insurance. Gore, in the name of fiscal prudence, offers them little relief... Bradley's winners extend to a much larger number--the entire low-income population--since they would all receive the same subsidy for buying their own private health insurance plan, whether or not they are currently insured. The losers are higher-income taxpayers, who would either forgo tax reductions or pay higher taxes. Bradley would change who pays for health care more than inject new money into the system; he thinks that equity in access to health care is in our society's long-term interest.

1/1/00 - NYT Thrashes Gore on Pharmaceutical Lies
In a piece entitled, unsurprisingly, "Gore's Latest Attack on Bradley Tells Only Part of the Story," John Broder of the New York Times examines Gore's attacks concerning ties to the Pharmaceutical industry.

1/1/00 - Washington Times declares Gore a liar.
You know you're in trouble when the Moonie Times gets in the act. According to the Times, the difference between President Clinton and the veep is that Gore lies for no apparent reason.

12/30/99 - Chris Matthews on Gore's dirty trick campaign.
They just keep on coming. Chris Matthews of cable news fame weighs in on the potential backfire of Gore's attack dog tactics.

12/24/99 - Bob Novak joins the fun.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak, in his most recent column, examines the Vice-President's distortion of Senator Bradley's position on Bosnia in the Meet the Press debate.

12/24/99 - More takes on Gore's stunt offer.
Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Sun-Times, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, and Michael Kelly of the Washington Post have joined the growing ranks of journalists who have called out Gore's "no-ad" stunt for what it was, a desperate ploy aimed at saving the Gore campaign from its own fiscal irresponsibility.

12/23/99 - Washington Post slams Gore.
The Washington Post takes the Vice-President to task today for his pathetic campaign tactics. Check it out.

12/23/99 - Corn Man?!?
In a move reminiscent of George Bush's "Ozone Man" stunt in 1992, Al Gore has sent out a six-foot tall ear of corn after Senator Bradley in Iowa. Has it come to this?

12/20/99 - Gore's Tobacco Hypocrisy flares up again.
Jon Doughtery of World Net Daily explains how Gore is laundering tobacco money through the "Vice Presidents Residence Foundation." Especially given the Vice-President's well-publicized anti-tobacco stance in 1992, his campaign's behavior in this instance is particularly appalling.

12/19/99 - Second Round Knockout!
Jacob Weisberg of Slate on the second debate:

I think it represents a pivotal moment in the Democratic campaign. I'm not sure whether the effect fully comes across in written form but on television Bradley made Gore look like a complete ass...Throughout the entire debate in fact, Bradley's facial expressions and body language were those of a grown-up compelled to contend with an obnoxious punk...While Gore rolled around in the muck, Bradley did no more than take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves...[Bradley] came across as straightforward and real, his authenticity underscored by Gore's plasticity. In sum, Gore may want to reconsider his request for twice-weekly debates. A few more like this morning's and he'll be kaput.

12/19/99 - He's Here! And There! - Gore's Panderama
Dana Milbank of The New Republic, in today's Washington Post: "The problem with pandering, as Vice President Gore is fast learning, is that once you start, it's hard to kick the habit..."

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