.. by refusing to say ANYTHING about the lies told about him and what he supposedly said about the internet and lovestory.

Same thing we have come to expect from Gore.. too little, too late.. and only when he is no longer actually IN politics.

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Sorry, but no candidate who can't be himself on stage can win a presidential election. I like Al Gore, but he and his campaign manager lost (won, then lost) the 2000 election.

It was Gore's to lose, and he lost it because he was afraid of making Bush look stupid. He was afraid of looking smart and capable and defining his own campaign issues.

And before somebody blames Nader again, let's not forget that 13 million Democrats voted for Bush, more than six times the total number of votes cast for Nader.

So for Bush II, we can thank 1. BS and AG, and 2. Democrats.

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...people like Dowd, man meat lover Matthews, Scarborough, O'Reilly Hannity, Russert and so many others in the MSM are the MSM muscle for the Catholic Church, my church but not me. Killers of democracy one and all just as are Scalia, Thomas, Robets, Alito and now even Kennedy.
The SCOTUS is now just an extension of the Catholic Churchand the Republican party.

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America lost that election. We lost it bad and we are paying the price. We all did it together. That's what democracy means. We are the ones who elect the lawmakers. We set up that supreme court by voting for conservative presidents. We set up the split in the Democratic party that allowed W to sneak in. We allowed the GOP congressional employees to mau mau the vote counters in Florida.

Our nation has bankrupted itself both financially and morally in the eyes of the world. We invaded a sovereign nation to get its oil resources. It wasn't the first time we did such a thing. It was just the first time that we got in over our shrunken heads.

Bush is our president. Iraq is our war. All of that stupidity is ours. Grow up and stop blaming others. We did it, and we have gotten what we deserve. What matters now is what we have learned from it. The tone of comments upthread would indicate the answer is: We didn't learn very much--except to run from the responsibility.

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The best analogy I can think of is being on a soapbox speaking to your neighbors when you know that your next-door neighbor had been almost mauled to death by a rotweiller just hours before.

Clinton could have helped Gore by campaigning for him but at what price? Gore should have faced down the media over Clinton and should not have conceded the election.

The popular view was that he wimped out and there's some truth in that. Easy to see in hindsight but in the throes of a vital campaign...?

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The problem is the media is reporting only what they are told to report or are more interested in uncovering a dark secret from years past rather than actually reporting the news. Our "news" coverage has turned into gossip and fluff rather than facts and substance. That's what everyone should be upset about.

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yet not one acknowledgment of that above. Yes, less than great campaign strategy by Gore made the 2000 election close enough to steal. But where is the outcry about the fact that two presidential elections were stolen? Where is the widespread outcry about Holt's HR 811 bill, that would allow the continuation of touch screen voting machine-- that in turn will allow the 2008 election also to be stolen?

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Al "wooden" Gore exhibits all traits of a loser. He was a profound loser during the elections and remains one today. His new-fangled reinvention as environmental crusader is a transparent ruse to maintain relevancy. Hey Al! the world has moved on...you lost to President George W. Bush and we hope your minions hear this too.
Semper Fidelis

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It wasn't just Dowd and Matthews; I heard Frank Rich say just before the election that he didn't think there would be a lot of difference between a Gore administration and a Bush one. He saw them both as political insiders, which, after Clinton, must have seemed boring and uninspiring.

Gore seems so damned determined to hang onto his dignity, a trait we saw in Kerry, too. They won't talk down, get mean or fight back, because they've never had to; they couldn't see that the elections were not about them but about our future as a nation. If they had, they would have challenged both outcomes. Yet the conseqences of the Bush presidency may well mean the end of our democracy as we know it, worldwide, unending war and ultimately a dead planet. Not the kind of entertainment I think the media anticipated. How quickly those nicknames wore thin to anyone who doesn't do cable!

Americans don't like a grind, something Clinton knew well. We want the world reduced to a simple formula with us on the good side, fighting the blue meanies. And we can't see that we are our own worst enemies. Even if we work for the New York Times or monopolize the airwaves.

Still, I'm grateful to Gore for running and continuing to work toward a livable planet. One reason I began working against the war and eventually to elect Kerry was that I realized I hadn't lifted a finger for Al. I thought it was his to lose, but it was ours as well.

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the people have forgotten about what really happened in the Florida 2000 election. They have not. We remember how then Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretry of State Katharine Harris illegally struck thousands of voters off the lists, thereby stealing the election for his Brother George and his mentor Dick Cheney, the worst criminals ever to occupy the White House.

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More like political gamesmanship, which both parties engage in. Demos lost, Repubs won. Wah. First, I saw reports of people claiming that the butterfly ballots were too difficult to understand. Yet, the ballots were ok'd by Demo functionaries. Are the voters too stupid, or were the functionairies? No matter how you slice that one, it boils down to stupid people, not theft.

Then, we have the matter of scrubbed voter registration lists. Even Greg Whatsisname, in his book, admits that when many of the county officials saw the names that were supposed to be removed, they realized that there were mistakes, and so many of them didn't even bother to follow through. So, instead of DOING THEIR JOBS, they simply ignored the lists. That means that many improperly-registered or illegally-registered people were allowed to vote, in violation of the law. Wanna guess which party the officials in question belonged to? I'll give you a hint--it's the same party which counts on illegal voters, such as convicted felons and illegal aliens, to vote for them. Now, there is a legitimate argument as to whether the laws should be changed to allow former felons who have paid their dues to regain the right to vote, but in FLA, the law is what it is. Change the law if you don't like it, but not in the middle of the election.

Ah, yes, that brings us to the actual fight over recounts and hanging chads, dimpled chads, and bug-eyed functionaries trying to divine "voter intent". Gore tries to get re-re-recounts only in counties very favorable to Demos, instead of every county, as FLA law calls for, and then tries to have different standards used to divine voter intent from thrice-handled ballots, all in an effort to add to his vote totals, once again against FLA law. A stupid, losing strategy, unless you have lawyers who can pressure a state Supreme Court to violate the very state laws they are supposed to uphold.

And then Katherine Harris, who just happens to be the state AG, is required, once more, BY LAW, to certify votes by a date certain, and she does so (I'm still puzzled why it is even allowable for a ranking state official to serve as a campaign chair for one of the candidates--there's another law that needs to be fixed--but there you go, FLA--more stupidity). However, if the roles were reversed, and she were a Demo and certified votes which locked in a win for a Demo candidate, I doubt Demos and Alternet-ers would be screaming conflict of interest. The Repubs would be. So your cries fall on deaf ears, here, as well.

The U.S. Supremes had to undo the obvious mistake made by the FLA Supreme Court, which violated its own state laws to give a Demo candidate more time to divine more votes, a purely political decision and without any basis in law. The decision was that FLA could not be allowed to violate the 14th Amendment Equal Protection precepts and invalidate its states' voters' rights (even the stupid ones!).

Perhaps Demos shouldn't be so reliant on the votes of ignoramuses too stupid to figure out a ballot or the concept of going to the correct voting precinct and criminals too stupid to not get caught and convicted, thus losing their right to vote, or, hey, here's a good one, stupid candidates who are too slick for their own good ("no controlling legal authority"-hah!), and political hacks like Shrum who take plenty of money and deliver nothing but L's.

I vote Libertarian, btw. I can't stand Bush and his agenda, but, as the bumper sticker says "Don't blame me..."

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YES, a thousand times YES. The media kept ridiculing him and asking who's "the guy you' d rather have a beer with or share a backyard bbq with? And too many Americans bought into it as if it had something to do with who would be a better President of the United States. I don't care how boring he might have seemed in the media glare, I was at some smallish events with Gore, and he was relaxed, delightfully funny and very attractive in person as well as knowing what he was talking about and how to make a complete sentence! I've been told I'm of above average intelligence, and I have a college degree, but I want a president who's smarter than me and most of the people I know. I want someone who can deal one-on-one with world leaders who will respect him/her and won't fall over into snickering fits over his verbal incapacity when he leaves the room. I never expect to have a president over for turkey burgers and beer, I expect him to be busy saving America from the disastrous dimwitted incompetence of George W. Bush and the diabolically dangerous warmongering of Dick Cheney. I don't care if he looks like Quasimodo and I don't expect him to move like Baryishnikov. We would be damn lucky if Gore decides to run again and should be grateful if we , not he, have the opportunity to get it right this time.

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