AlGore legends and myths

Jules Crittenden refutes Tom Friedman:

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Friedman ventures deep into myth and legend in his latest, suggesting Gore was deprived of his crown by a Republican Supreme Court, failing to note that charitably objective, arguably hostile media and academic counts have in fact conceded that, under the rules that govern our elections, Bush won. That’s followed by plaudits for Gore’s alarmist, scientifically distorted and grossly hypocritical campaign against the forces of man and nature.

He slams Bush for wasting an entire year in the first 9 months of his term, and condemns him for failing to advance a social agenda in the midst of war, then attacks him for failing to sufficiently alarm people about our enemies, and for failing to make it about oil.

Yes, Iraq was always going to be hugely difficult, but the potential payoff of erecting a decent, democratizing government in the heart of the Arab world was also enormous. Yet Mr. Bush, in his signature issue, never mobilized the country, never punished incompetence, never made the bad guys “fight all of us,” as Bill Maher put it, by at least pushing through a real energy policy to reduce the resources of the very people we were fighting. He thought he could change the world with 50.1 percent of the country, and he couldn’t.

Glad to see the shout out for Iraq. Iraq needs all the friends it can get. Where Bush went wrong with it is another matter, and here is where Friedman veers sharply back into fantasy.

Someone needs to tell Tom: It’s not that Americans haven’t been amply demonstrated that there is a mortal peril from determined fanatics who want to kill them, and seek apocalyptic means with which to accomplish their goals. It’s that they don’t care to believe it, or think it can be wished away, or think it the end, it isn’t that big a deal, and anyway, why do they hate us?

Bush, who sought to unify America for war but encountered rank partisanship and defiant wishful thinking, is faulted for failing to overcome same in the midst of war to advance a social agenda. Rather than use what unity may have briefly existed to advance the agenda of his political adversaries, he basely acted on his own beliefs. The excaliber Bush never pulled out of the rock was going green. Friedman exalts Gore’s mighty sword as the scourge of all foes environmental, economic and geo-political.

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There is more and Crittenden is much more fun to read than Friedman. Liberal myths are a wondrous thing, but defusing them is also interesting work and few are better than Crittenden.

Exposing liberalism is a full time job and it will take many of us cut through their fantasies. One of the problems with liberalism is its assumption of moral superiority to those who oppose its way of achieving objectives. Gore is a great example of this. He is preaching fire and brimstone at the unbelievers rather than showing the benefits of greater efficiencies that can also produce results that lead to a cleaner environment.

Gore reminds me of the abolitionists who sparked the civil war without any idea of what to do with freed slaves. Where would they live? What would they do for a living? Even after the civil war they had no clue, and that is just the descent abolitionist. Many were racist who either wanted a black genocide or a shipment of all of them back to Africa.

None of them had a clue about creating an economic environment that would give these people a chance of success. If they had given it some thought perhaps their objectives could have been achieved without the deaths of over 600,000 Americans. While I don't think Gore is going to start another civil war, he is focusing on the wrong message for change.