Journalism Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if the Supremes had handed the presidency to Al Gore instead of to the current resident of the White House? Me too.

Apparently some journalists have been wondering the same thing, are re-thinking their coverage of the Gore campaign, and have confessed their misgivings to Vanity Fair magazine in a recent article by Evgenia Peretz.

More about that later.

First, here’s how I, a humble sometime commentator and columnist, believe the country and world would be different if we’d had a President Gore for the last seven years.

I’m pretty sure that polar bears (and we human beings) would be a lot safer than we are now. Global warming has been Gore’s passion for at least 30 years. This year that passion was acknowledged and rewarded when his film and TV show won two Oscars, an Emmy, and the Nobel Peace Prize. For some folks that’s an inconvenient truth, but there it is.

And if anybody thinks protecting the environment isn’t about peace, reflect on the wars, civil and otherwise, that can result if there’s a shortage of resources vital to life itself. Food, water, and air spring immediately to mind.

Not to mention how many people would be annoyed if Florida or New York were to disappear. Some cranks might say it’s okay for Florida to float because mostly coots like me live there and everybody’s gotta die sometime. But New York? Yikes! That’s where the money is.

If Gore were president, I doubt we’d be mired in an illegal and immoral war, we might still have a budget surplus instead of a doubling of the national debt, we might be a bit closer to national health care, and perhaps Americans would trust our election process more than we do. And is it possible that our moral standing in the world community would be a good bit higher than it is now?

I also recall that the Clinton Administration had paid close attention to terrorism advisor Richard “hair on fire” Clark and the CIA when they repeatedly warned that terrorists were planning to attack the United States. Is it possible that 9-11 could have been mitigated if not prevented if Gore had been president?

Just asking.

In fact, I DID ask. I turned to a local person with strong political and educational credentials who asked not to be named because a career could be jeopardized—and I found that we agreed on all of the above. However, we couldn’t agree on whether the people surrounding Bush tampered with the election process both in Florida and in 2004, in Ohio.

I believe they did; my friend isn’t so sure.

That aside, some think Gore lost because he just wasn’t a good candidate. Others say the media were not as “charmed” by Gore as they were by Bush—and THAT’S where we got the idea that he wasn’t a good candidate.

Now comes the Vanity Fair piece that explains how it all began.

Peretz says that over the course of a two-hour interview with Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty and the New York Times’ Richard Berke, Gore “casually reminisced” about his time at Harvard with his roommate Tommy Lee Jones.

Gore quoted a story in the Nashville Tennessean that said Gore’s friend Erich Segal had told reporters that Gore and his wife had been models for the Love Story couple. Now, the paper HAD said Gore was the model for Oliver, but they had omitted the fact that there was a lot of Tommy Lee Jones thrown in. Unfortunately, there was no mention of Tipper.

Tumulty now says that she and co-author Eric Poley had treated Gore’s remark in the profile they wrote as an offhand comment, and “suddenly it becomes this big thing that dogs him for the rest of the campaign.” The New York Times even interpreted it as a “calculated political move.” Sheesh, Love Story wasn’t even a very good book.

Then there was Gore telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he “took the initiative”—politico-speak for leadership—in “creating the Internet.” In the 1970s, the Internet was a limited research tool used by the Pentagon and universities, but in the 1980s Gore sponsored two bills that turned it into an “information superhighway.” Vinton Cerf, often called the father of the Internet, has claimed that the Internet wouldn’t be what is today without Gore’s leadership. Newt Gingrich publicly agreed.

But from then on, the Gore campaign was repeatedly charged with insincerity, and the New York Post even ran a headline over a Gore story that screamed “Liar, Liar!” (No mention of pants on fire, however.) Distortions on his credibility took on a life of their own. Rather than focusing on Gore’s take on the issues, reporters mocked him for his “lies,” his sighs, his earth-toned wardrobe, and whether it would be more fun to have a beer with Bush than with Gore.

I don’t want a beer with my president. I want him to be smarter than me.

Now according to Peretz, many in the media are re-assessing their 2000 coverage. Some are even feeling a bit guilty about it. Like the Washington Post’s Howard Fineman, who told Tipper Gore recently that, despite his often negative reporting, he admired her husband. Thought Mrs. Gore, “Too little too late, buddy.”

No wonder Gore refuses to run again. It’s got to be a lot more fun getting awards for work you believe in than being attacked for doing your job.

Donna Acquaviva lives, writes, and teaches in Roanoke County, Va.