Had I not been bogged down by personal business the past couple days, I’d have shared with all of you the marvelous material I’ve been collecting on Al Gore’s historic speech on Monday. Here are the four stories we all participated in Sunday and Monday: “Gore Video & Media Reactions,” “What Al Said,” “Al Gore Speech Live-Blogging,” and “Al Gore Speech: 9am PT/Noon ET.”
The downcast view of Peter Daou, expressed in Monday night’s “Gore Video & Media Reactions” was fortunately premature. The response has turned out to be far more than we could have hoped for — and I think in good part because Gore’s speech was exceptional, daring, constructive, and — dammit — revolutionary!
Did any of you catch Larry King’s show Monday night? In which he featured video excerpts of Al Gore’s speech at the top of several segments? (Transcript).
Then there was Scottie McClellan’s pouty, loud response to Al’s speech which got a ton of press (692 stories and counting). And — below the fold — I’ve given you the back-and-forth between Helen Thomas and Scott McClellan that is priceless and worth scanning in full. Helen drives a Mac truck through Scottie every time she gets a chance! She cracks me up! (And don’t miss Al’s response to the White House accusations at Raw Story.)
Tuesday morning, Amy Goodman devoted a segment to Gore’s speech:
GOODMAN: Former Vice President Al Gore gave a major speech in Washington Monday accusing President Bush of “repeatedly and persistently” breaking the law by authorizing the NSA wiretaps. We play an excerpt of the address and the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union are filing separate lawsuits challenging President Bush’s order for the NSA to conduct domestic spy operations without legally-required court warrants. We speak with a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
[Then Goodman interviewed Shayana Kadidal, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, on Gore’s speech, the NSA spying scandal, and CCR’s lawsuit.]
Debate about Gore’s speech has highlighted many segments on CNN and MSNBC in the past two days. In related stories, the world’s best expert on the NSA, James Bamford, has been interviewed on numerous programs, including NPR (listen to last night’s interview on All Things Considered), about his participation in the ACLU lawsuit. Christopher Hitchens has written a brilliant explanation of his participation in the same suit.
Now comes this, via Howie in Seattle, from The Progressive Review, tipped by News Dissector (a great resource, by the way):
“Al Gore’s remarkable speech on Bush’s illegal wiretapping – combined with his earlier criticisms of the Iraq war and his longstanding attention to the dangers of climate change – make him the only major Democratic figure, save Russ Feingold, worth the attention of the decent and democratic wing of the Democratic Party. … continued below …
Scott and Helen are below … first, here is the conclusion of the Progressive Review writing:
Once you give him that attention, however, you are left with the problem that Al Gore isn’t always your friend, hasn’t always taken the positions he takes today, and can’t be relied upon to do right in the future. In other words, traits of your average politician.
From a literary standpoint, however, Gore is about the only interesting major Democratic politician around, in part because his compromises and failures in judgment seem not – as with the Clintons – based simply on cold, cruel calculation but are the errant result of the clash between clear perception and the miasma of ambition, honest assessment and easier articulations, a moral heart and amoral muscles.
Al Gore could have grabbed a piece of greatness, but often took what seemed the easy and clever way out. . . which repeatedly turned out to be no such thing, perhaps because the conflicts within himself could produce neither efficient cynicism nor charismatic nobility.
The causes may have included being the son of a senator, living like Eloise in a Washington hotel as a young man, going to St. Alban’s prep school where the future capital elite was trained in pompous and sometimes pathological certainty, and periodically visiting the strikingly different ecology of Tennessee.
No matter. He’s back. He’s says he’s not running, but such statements don’t count until the year in question. He’s only done a couple of things right lately, but that easily puts him at the head of the Democratic pack.
For progressives, Gore presents an interesting problem because regardless of whether one would choose to vote for him, his success at this time will have an effect on the success of all of us. Certainly, as the following suggests, there is plenty to concern one about Gore. You may find things that alternately please or annoy you or that you just shrug off. But if Gore becomes the prophetic voice of a revived America – failed and flawed as the sound may be – we will all be better off. For the moment, we should enjoy the resonance of anyone with that many microphones in front of him saying the right thing for a change.”
Helen and Scottie on Jan. 17, 2006 (full tranccript):
Q You kept saying “lawful.” It’s true the President — there is a law that permits the President to get a warrant and wiretap. But he has not been doing that; he’s been breaking the law. Al Gore said he broke the law. The ACLU is filing a suit. Why does he break the law? I mean, he has the means and the tools to do what —
MR. McCLELLAN: I reject that wholeheartedly, Helen. The legal justification has been spelled out by the Department of Justice.
In terms of Al Gore’s comments, I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds. It was the Clinton administration that used warrantless physical searches. An example is what they did in the case of Aldrich Ames. And it was the Deputy Attorney General under the Clinton administration that testified before Congress and said, “First, the Department of Justice believes and the case law supports that the President has inherent authority” — inherent authority — “to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.” This is testimony, public testimony before the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
I would also point out that a former associate Attorney General under the Clinton administration said that every President since FISA’s passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the Act’s terms — under President Clinton — and he pointed to the Deputy Attorney General’s comments that I just referenced. So —
Q Then you welcome a core test on whether this is really legal or not.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there’s going to be a Judiciary Committee hearing and the Attorney General has indicated he looks forward to going before the Judiciary Committee and discussing the legal justification for this. We have already spelled that legal justification out for people to look at. And he looks forward to talking to the Judiciary Committee and testifying on these matters.
Q Scott, let me just follow on the criticism of Al Gore, who, as Helen notes, called the spying program a dangerous over-reach; said that it should be looked into by a special counsel; said later that this may even be an impeachable offense. At the same time you’ve got Senator Hilary Clinton calling this administration one of the worst in U.S. history, comparing your Republican-controlled House to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.
How do you respond to what seem to be —
MR. McCLELLAN: You’re combining two things. Let me address the first one —
Q Right, but I mean, they’re combined in a sense that they go to how the party is governing, how the President is governing —
MR. McCLELLAN: I think I just talked about Al Gore’s comments and I said Al Gore’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. If he is going to be the voice of the Democratic Party on national security matters, we welcome it, we look forward to the discussion. I think the American people clearly understand the importance of what we’re trying to do to protect them and prevent attacks from happening. And that’s why this authorization is so vital.
In terms of the comments you referenced from Senator Clinton, I think that they were out of bounds.
Q Well, what’s going on here, do you think?
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry?
Q I mean, where is this coming from? You’ve got two of the most high-profile Democrats saying these things; what do you think they’re up to?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think we know one tends to like or enjoy grabbing headlines. The other one sounds like that the political season may be starting early.
Q So you think Gore is going to run again; is that — (laughter.)
MR. McCLELLAN: I’ll let you figure that one out. (Laughter.)
SEE ALSO: Al’s response to the White House accusations at Raw Story
