Al Gore, his words, and the difficulty of being truthful

I first considered writing something about Al Gore's historic difficulty in being honest after the truly offensive 1996 acceptance speech before the Democratic convention. I didn't have a mechanism, and as a simple poor college student, I didn't have the time either.

Now I do, and yet, I think I'm going to just let Al's own words do the speaking here. I'll interject, where it's not blatantly obvious, to point to the lie in the words, but for the most part the absurdity is plain, simple, documented Al Gore.

To begin:

1) Facts: Al Gore's sister died in 1984. In 1988 (this would be four years later): "Throughout most of my life, I've raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've dug it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it." Source? Newsday, 2/26/88.

1996: Al Gore stands up at the Democratic convention and rails against "Big Tobacco", and stirs up emotions and causes much weeping when he goes on about how his sister died of cancer caused by tobacco and how that changed his life. He does this to take advantage of the left-side "Big Tobacco as villain" rage.

Problem: AFTER his sister's death, he continued to: grow tobacco and profit from it; publicly stated that he was proud of his tobacco heritage and that his family grew and sold tobacco; take contributions from Philip Morris (Big Tobacco). And those nasty little FACTS contradict the weepy story he wove at the convention in 1996, since he couldn't have been "changed" by his sister's death, aka changed against tobacco's evils... and then take pride in raising and selling tobacco and having a tobacco heritage four years AFTER her death.

Conclusion: this is just sickening, to deliberately lie about the order of events and how his sister's death "changed him" from supporting tobacco to opposing it -- when his actions, words, and financing were all pro-tobacco for years and years afterward.

2) Honesty in Government, or how Al Gore would treat politicians who lied under oath and to the American people:

Quote: "Any government official who lies to the United States Congress will be fired immediately". Source: Seattle Times, July 29, 1987.

Quote: "I seek this office to restore the rule of law and respect for common sense in the White House." Source: Seattle Times, July 29, 1987.


The problem, of course, is that Mr. Gore here must be talking about the standard he'd apply to only Republican White Houses, since he held up President Clinton, after it was public and indisputable knowledge that he had lied not only to Congress but had stood up before the American citizens and specifically and deliberately LIED to them, as the "one of our greatest Presidents" (rally on Dec. 19, 1998). So, he would fire immediately "any government official who lies", making that point because he at that time understood that a public official who lies to the public on any topic is a public official whose interests are not the public's but their own. Along comes President Clinton, and Mr. Gore's modest and honorable standards, as shown by his own words above, are completely and utterly forgotten. Chalk it up again to Al Gore choosing political expediency and his own political neck over simple honesty (and for that matter being consistent to his own publicly-stated principles).


3) The self-proclaimed genius of the Environment and science! These quotes are fine if you're the average-Joe who doesn't walk around touting his excellent knowledge of the environment and all-things environmental, but if you do sound off at how great you are and how knowledgeable you are, then it's incumbent upon you to actually SHOW that knowledge and NOT make constant factual errors about the topic. Enjoy:

Al Gore on Trees:
Quote: "When we come here, we see the Longpole pine and the Douglas fir." Source: Al Gore, speech for Yellowstone's 125th anniversary, Albright Visitor's Center, August 17, 1997. (For the record, it's Lodgepole Pine, there's no such thing as Longpole pine.)

Al Gore on Breast Cancer:
Quote: how breast cancer victims faced "a long waiting line before they could get a biopsy... or, uh, a sonogram..." Source: MSNBC, 9/21/00, The News with Brian Williams. (For the record, breast cancer victims are not interested in sonograms, they're interested in mammiograms.)

Al Gore on doing Basic Math:
Quote: from his 2000 Democratic Convention acceptance speech, where he claimed the "Bush tax cut would save the average family 62 cents per week." He was using his vaunted science and math skills, as a thinker, to show how Bush wasn't helping the poor or middle class. Only problem? His math was off. He admitted that later, saying it was 62 cents per family per day ... which is, surprise surprise, also wrong. The Bush tax plan during the campaign was verified by the various financial bodies of Congress, BEFORE Mr. Gore went forth with his claim, as coming out to $29 per family per week.


Al Gore on how to be an expert in an environmental field:
Quote: "I'm very familiar with the importance of dairy farming in Wisconsin. I've spent the night on a dairy farm here in Wisconsin. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, you'll have someone who is very familiar with what the Wisconsin dairy industry is all about." Source: June 18, 2000, Atlanta Journal Constitution. (problem? Now we're experts if we sleep for one night in someone's barn -- wow, I'm going to go sleep in an abandoned nuclear silo and become a nuclear scientist!!!)

Al Gore's famous statement on the Internet:
Quote: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Source: Al Gore, on CNN, interview with Wolf Blitzer, March 9, 1999.

Problem? The Internet existed well before Al Gore entered Congress (email, file-sharing via UUCP, etc), making it a simple impossibility for him to "take the initiative in creating" it. Can't create that which already exists. But evidently you can try to claim it, no matter how untrue (and patently ridiculous) the assertion is. Or how easily disproved the assertion is. That's also sad: that he'd say something like this when it's chronologically false and takes five seconds to disprove!

Al Gore, on Zebras (basic ability to look at pictures, animal knowledge, etc.):
Quote: "A zebra does not change his spots." Source: Al Gore attacking George Bush in 1992.
Problem? Zebras don't have spots. Take three seconds to pick up a picture-book for children and look at it. Or, like the rest of us who aren't self-proclaimed knowledge-gods about everything, just remember it from seeing pictures of zebras.

3) Random Stupidity that would be shameful from any public official:

Quote: Al Gore, Monticello, before the inauguration, actually asked who the statues were around them -- and the statues? Busts of the founding fathers. Complete with nameplates.

Quote: "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Delgadillo, Thank you for your letter regarding the protection of the Texas eagle. I appreciate hearing from you. "I share your view that the urgent problem of species extinction and the conservation of biological diversity should be addressed. The first step in saving any plant or animal from extinction is to become aware of and respect the fragile ecosystems that make up our environment ... "Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I look forward to working with you for the future of our planet." Source: reported in the 12/6/96 Washington Times "Inside the Beltway" by John McCaslin. Problem? The Texas Eagle that the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Delgadillo had been complaining about is actually a TRAIN, an Amtrak train that the couple relied on to travel to see their children in Chicago that the Clinton administration was nixing. When confronted with the couples complaint about an Amtrak train, the self-proclaimed genius Al Gore wrote the letter above. Way to go, Al! Right on target! (might have helped if he'd read their complaint, I guess).

Well, that's enough for now. The problem is, a simple search for Al Gore's own words and the self-contradicting nature of them turns up so many, literally THOUSANDS of times where he couldn't get basic facts right, forgets what he's talking about, or in the one I didn't use above, calls Mary and Joseph "homeless" when they brought the baby Jesus to Bethlehem -- and, for those who didn't know, Mary and Joseph owned their own home and were making a family-culture-related pilgrimmage (for lack of better words) to Bethlehem for the child's birth. But again, that would require Mr. Gore to either: know what he's talking about in the first place; or take ten seconds to look up the information so he doesn't look stupid. Given that he continues to this day to stand by the truth of his words and continues to give us more and more statements as above, I guess it is too much to ask that he do either one.

Oh, one last one, just because I can: the environmental-wizard that is Al Gore, the self-proclaimed specialist, called the Washington Post's editor in 1998 to warn him that he'd "printed a picture of the Earth upside-down on the front page" (Source: Florida Times Union, 4/3/98). The problem, for those not as knowledgeable as our Mr. Gore? There is no "up" or "down" in space and there cannot be a picture of the Earth "upside-down". To call and warn someone they were doing so demonstrates the true depth of Mr. Gore's knowledge -- which is scanty and superficial.

The Citizen will continue with more of Mr. Gore in a few weeks. Next up, the new bankruptcy rules, or how Republicans betrayed the American people and justified all the bad things Democrats say about them.