Gore: No Laughing Matter?

"The former vice president's slashing attacks on the administration and his stalwart, if misguided, opposition to the Iraq war leave him without the complications and complexes that will devil Clinton as she seeks to appeal to the unforgiving left of the Democratic Party.

"And Gore may be a man whose time has come in his party. It was he who warned of climate change and predicted its consequences. Hurricane Katrina was just a fulfillment of the prophesies Gore wrote about in his late-1980s book Earth in the Balance. He has been an energy-conservation nut for years, and his obsessions with alternatives to oil will play better and better as we come to realize how our addiction to oil has led us to dependency on the dealers of this particular drug -- Iran, the Saudi royal family and Hugo Chavez.

"The Democratic base's anger at Gore's defeat in 2000 was assuaged by the worse Kerry defeat of 2004. The idea that he was an incompetent candidate has been replaced in Democratic iconography by the idea that he was cheated out of the presidency."

HuffPoster Rodes Fishburne puts his reputation on the line:

"Here's one wild prediction: Al Gore will be the Democratic nominee for the 2008 Presidential election . . . He has something going for him that Senator Hillary Clinton can't touch: nothing is more satisfying to the American soul than a bona-fide comeback. In fact the comeback is one of the great stories of all-time . . .

"For the first time in modern politics he will be able to run on the S-C-W platform. This is the Shoulda Coulda Woulda position that whispers in polite but firm tones into the many ears of the national psyche, 'If you'd voted for me, we wouldn't be in this mess.' "

Of course, we might be in a different kind of mess. Who knows?

Here's a new tea leaf, as read by the New Republic's Jason Zengerle :

"I see (via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire) that Al Gore made an interesting comment in Atlanta yesterday: 'Like I said, I'm a recovering politician. But you always have to worry about a relapse.' He's been using the 'recovering politician' joke for years, but I believe the 'relapse' line is new."

And Philly blogger Dick Polman is even bragging that he had it first:

"I recall some weeks ago saying that it would be wise, regarding the 2008 Democratic presidential race, to keep an eye on Al Gore. I'll say it again today. Leaving aside the fact that in recent months he has landed on the cover of three magazines and helmed the opening sketch on Saturday Night Live, he has now dropped a hint that his political ambitions might yet be freed from his lockbox."

Arianna gives an indication of how popular the Tennessean has become with the liberal blogging set: