Gore Debate Heats Up

The Al Gore coverage drove me nuts.

Put aside the global warming issue for a second--every television show on the planet had some version of "Now that he's won the Nobel Prize, will he jump into the presidential campaign?"

And then the correspondents and pundits would come on and say: "Eh, probably not. I don't see it. Too late for Iowa. No groundswell for Gore. Not unless Hillary gets hit by a bus." And on and on.

In other words, it was a phony premise, everyone knew it, and yet all kinds of segments and shoutfests were built around it.

It would be one thing if there were a void in the Democratic field, or Gore was dropping hints, or his staff was quietly suggesting that he was looking at the primary calendar. But there was none of that. Television simply dusted off the same scripts used when the Gore movie won an Oscar and asked, Will he? Will he? Could he? Should he?

Aside from that exercise in empty blather, there is a more serious discussion going on--about the extent of the global warming problem and what conservatives see as the politicization of the Nobel. And beyond that, some media types are making a not-so-subtle contrast between the 2000 presidential rivals and how life has worked out for them in the ensuing seven years.

At the Carpetbagger Report, Steve Benen focuses on the right's reaction:

"I saw the first few minutes of Fox News Sunday and was struck by how angry the conservative Republicans were about Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize. These guys don't just ignore the scientific evidence, they lash out wildly at Gore, the Nobel committee, the scientists, everyone who dares to think differently than they do.

"Bill Kristol disparaged Gore and the Nobel prize itself, saying 'it's a prize given by bloviators to a bloviator.' Charles Krauthammer insisted the award goes to 'people whose politics are either anti-American or anti-Bush, and that's why [Gore] won it.'

"These pundits were obviously bitter and incensed, much the same way National Review's Iain Murray was late last week, when he suggested Gore share his award with Osama bin Laden, 'who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance' in a September video harangue. (Apparently, to accept global warming is to embrace a terrorist philosophy.)

"It's led Paul Krugman to ask a good question: 'What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?' "

All right, cue the Krugman column: