Al Gore’s Hypocrisy and the Failure of the Modern GOP
I must say that I sympathize somewhat with all the right-wingers out there who have lately been hurling the hypocrite label at good ol’ Al. It is certainly true that most Americans do not consume as much energy as Gore does. Al and Tipper do purchase “carbon offsets” but no matter how you slice it, the future is not going to have room for sprawling estates and massive energy consumption. I certainly would prefer that Al and Tipper use their riches to buy a nice penthouse loft in a green building and be chauffeured around in an electric car.
However, let’s take a look back into history and at Mr. Gore’s attackers.
One thing I always find interesting is that the greatest champion of the American Middle Class in our history was an aristocratic New Yorker named Franklin Roosevelt. I’m fairly sure that President Roosevelt didn’t feel the effects of the Great Depression in the way that those he championed did. My point here is that is that those who have been responsible for great public policy did not always personally stand to benefit from such policy. Additionally, who among us is not a hypocrite, no matter to which degree?
What matters to me is the message that Mr. Gore brings and the policies he stands for. We need to ask what really gives a politician credibility? Politicians should be evaluated on the fruit of their policy goals. Politicians often have messy personal lives that are full of hypocrisy but political lives full of accomplishment. FDR, JFK, and Churchill all were either womanizers or alcoholics. Al Gore may be a glutton but won’t we be better off for embracing his policies rather than his opponents’?
Fact is, the GOP and their proxies stand for policy failure. What is the fruit of George W. Bush’s policy goals? Oil companies and corporate fat cats have been the only one’s to see fruit. No doubt, the only demographic group that benefits from GOP policies are corporate executives. Right-wing policies are currently bleeding our middle class and are endangering any attempt at an environmentally sustainable future. For the sake of argument, I’ll be generous and say that maybe there are some short-term benefits by allowing GOP deregulation efforts to continue. It may help that housing lenders and developers continue to increase our housing supply by expanding growth boundaries and debt levels. Oh wait, that will not last either.
All the naysayers who would rather champion failure than take a look at what Al Gore has to say are going to be thrown on the trash heap of history. We all will have to embrace a more equitable, sustainable, and oil-free future. Rather than look for long-term solutions for what it will take to create a sustainable future, right-wing failures are just attacking the messenger.
Al Gore is thinking long-term, what is the Republican Party doing besides making obvious problems worse?
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