Gore: Democracy is under attack

Posted by Melissa McEwan at 11:32 AM on August 28, 2006.

In Edinburgh to promote An Inconvenient Truth, Gore minced no words: "In my country and others around the world democracy is under attack."

"There's a feeling in the US on the part of many that the way democracy operates today is very different from the system we learned about in school."

He said that democracy, which he described as a "conversation", was now "more controlled and centralised", and that the most important role of the media was to facilitate democracy.

Gore said American politicians were spending their time raising funds at small gatherings and cocktail parties because, "the only thing that matters in American politics now is having enough money to put 30-second commercials on air to persuade the voters to elect or re-elect you."

Gore added that the internet offers "the promise of recreating a meritocracy of ideas." Let it be as you say, sir.

Also, when Gore was asked the recently popular question of whether Bush is stupid, he replied, "I don't think he's unintelligent at all. He's incurious ... there's a puzzling lack of curiosity," proving once again that he is not only a scholar, but a gentleman. Because if I had been subjected to repeated charges that I was "too brainy" and "too wonky" and "too professorial" etc. like he was by the media in 2000, only to have them ask six long years later whether Bush is stupid, I would have screamed, "Fuck youuuuuuuu, assholes!" just before my head exploded.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare's Sister.)

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.