# Is Al Gore really going insane since the '00 election was stolen from him? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750 "2004-05-30T02:59:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/41 "2004-05-31T21:07:31Z")
Something I believe in, and it seems Gore does too, but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft do not: _America! America! God mend thine every flaw! Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!_ “Insane”, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/42 "2004-05-31T21:18:26Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > That is why it is noteworthy to comment on things like the kiss at the convention and the speech a few days ago. **They are wildly out of character for the man.** Therefore, when he engages in behavior of this type, it shows that he is being stage managed or handled to a degree, or making a conscious effort to break with his old image. > > In politics, that’s news. And, **since Al Gore’s life is one of “reinvention”** , it isn’t out of line to criticize it to a degree. I don’t thing he was insane, certainly. But his speech was way over the top, and wasn’t aiming for the political middle. One has to ask why. Question: how do you know what is out of character for Gore? Or what consistutes re-invention. Best I can tell, these things are regurgitations of shrill anti-Gore spin points, not any sort of savvy analysis of the man. Pundits painted him as being a bore, and then they painted him as being insane and then they called their own changing portrayals “re-invention.” If you don’t understand this, then you completely missed the 2000 election coverage. For instance, at one point, the media all of a sudden started talking about Gore wearing “earth tones” and trying to play the “alpha male” and having a makeover from Naomi Wolff. In reality, Gore’s clothing choices hadn’t changed at all: there are plenty of pictures of him wearing “earth tones” months previous to this nonsense cropping up about a re-invention. And where did it all start? Where else: RNC attack memos that eventually turned into pundit talking points. This was particularly irritating to me as I happen to be related to a certain well known up and coming newscaster. This guy, who’s supposed to be the next big thing, spent a segment with well known Bush-admirer from Newsweek discussing Gore’s choices of clothing and what deep insights they told about his character. It went something like “one day, he’s wearing a suit and tie, and the next, he’s wearing casual clothing and muted colors.” They concluded that this all meant that Gore just doesn’t know who he is, what he wants to be. The real irony is that a year later, this same Newsweek hack wrote a laudatory article about Bush that included a bit about how Bush would wear different clothing depending on what audiences he was with: casual one engagement, professional suit the next. He concludes that this means that Bush is comfortable in many environments. Pray for my gene pool. Anyway, THAT was and is the sort of airhead nonsense that passes for sage political analysis of the personal characters of candidates. Please please please, don’t buy into it. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/43 "2004-05-31T21:23:12Z")
One thing I have to ask. Charles Krauthammer is an actual liscened shrink as far as I know and as far as he claims. And yet he seems to be to constantly be trading on his liscence to call political opponents insane, claiming that they’ve gone off their meds, and diagnosing them with disorders for disagreeing with him. [http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004\_05\_30\_archive.html#108601318505210090](http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_05_30_archive.html#108601318505210090) Is something like this grounds to lose one’s liscence to practice? Personally, I would think the profession would find it pretty damaging for someone who claims to be acting on the basis of his liscence and training to make phony points like this. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/44 "2004-05-31T21:50:12Z")
[His bio here](http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BIOS/cbkrauthammer.htm) shows that he’s a former psychiatrist who gave it up to devote himself to partisan column-writing in 1978. He may have turned his license in then, too. Krauthammer has been a paraplegic since an accident during med school. That has to influence his attitudes toward the world, no matter how hard he may have tried not to let it. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/45 "2004-06-01T01:04:01Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > When he’s calm, they call him a “robot”, and when he shows some emotion, he’s “insane”. > > In other words, he shows a human range of emotion. What are they going to attack him for next, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide? > > “Al Gore actually eats food and produces waste! HE’S INSANE!” Thanks for the laugh. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/46 "2004-06-01T02:41:46Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Wow - what a speech. The word “scathing” comes to mind. No wonder the republicans are freaking out about it. So has anyone come up with anything in the speech that isn’t true? Good question. The whole argument about the speech reminds me of something that Harry Truman supposedly said…Something to the effect of “I don’t give them hell; I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell!” That was the feeling I got when I read Gore’s speech. The insanity is in what is actually going on…Not how Gore is describing it. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/47 "2004-06-01T02:52:29Z")
I want to thank you guys here for actually being objective about Gore and Any Democrat. BobLimDem said it really well. Its been said God puts people in charge of countries. God hates us, apparently… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/48 "2004-06-01T13:47:25Z")
Actually, I thought most of the speech was over the top, especially in time of war. It is possible to disagree with the Bush Administration, and even strongly, but do so in a way that doesn’t rhetorically aid your enemy, and forebode defeat. It is that tone I think many people will have an issue with. For that reason, I think it was a speech that, primarily, preached to the converted. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/49 "2004-06-01T13:59:24Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Actually, \I thought\ most of the speech was over the top, especially in time of war. Emphasis mine. You’re welcome to think whatever you want, and to stand up and be counted; it’s a free country. But polling is over in IMHO; this is GD. Do you have some _justification_ for your feelings, in terms of particular excerpts from his speech? > [@](#): > > It is possible to disagree with the Bush Administration, and even strongly, but do so in a way that doesn’t rhetorically aid your enemy, and forebode defeat. True. If you’re suggesting that Gore crossed that line (wherever it may be), specific excerpts would again be helpful. Absent that, you are not taking a position in a debate; you’re registering your opinion in a poll. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/50 "2004-06-01T21:20:35Z")
[Prophetic.](http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-09gore-speech.html) > [@](#): > > I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century. > \ > I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task [of tracking down al-Qaeda] simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than was predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another. We should remain focused on the war against terrorism. > \ > I believe this proposed foreshortening of deliberation in the Congress robs the country of the time it needs for careful analysis of exactly what may lie before us. Such consideration is all the more important because the administration has failed thus far to lay out an assessment of how it thinks the course of a war will run - even while it has given free run to persons both within and close to the administration to suggest at every opportunity that this will be a pretty easy matter. And it may well be, but the administration has not said much of anything to clarify its idea of what would follow regime change or the degree of engagement that it is prepared to accept for the United States in Iraq in the months and years after a regime change has taken place. Al Gore was, and is, miles better than his reputation. ---
**Author:** ![braintree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@braintree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/braintree)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750/51 "2004-06-02T17:26:31Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Emphasis mine. > > You’re welcome to think whatever you want, and to stand up and be counted; it’s a free country. But polling is over in IMHO; this is GD. Do you have some _justification_ for your feelings, in terms of particular excerpts from his speech? > > True. If you’re suggesting that Gore crossed that line (wherever it may be), specific excerpts would again be helpful. Absent that, you are not taking a position in a debate; you’re registering your opinion in a poll. I think our good friend, Mr. Moto, has learned that it doesn’t pay for him to argue specifics since, for him, that’s usually when the trouble starts. You have to like a man who equates valid criticism with aiding and abetting our enemies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-al-gore-really-going-insane-since-the-00-election-was-stolen-from-him/247750.md?page=2)