Al Gore won’t run for President. The discussion he had with Marty Peretz of The New Republic tells me why. Namely, it’s the media, stupid (via The Raw Story).
“Modern politics seems to require and reward some capacities that I don’t think I have in abundance … such as a tolerance for … spin rather than an honest discussion of substance. Apparently, it comes easily for some people, but not for me,” Gore says.
Peretz reports specifically on Gore’s coverage in The New York Times and in The Washington Post, each of which reported and/or referenced Gore’s supposed claims that he invented the Internet, that the two main characters in Love Story were based on him and Tipper, and that he discovered the toxic waste at Love Canal.
Asked about the debate coverage, Gore tells Peretz, “The sighs, the sighs, the sighs … Within 18 hours, they had turned perception around to where the entire story was about me sighing. And that’s scary. That’s scary.”
We have a “Gotcha!” media when it comes to Democrats, liberals and anyone left of center who becomes a public figure (just ask Cindy Sheehan). I suppose I don’t blame Gore for his reluctance to re-enter Presidential politics. Undoubtedly the same media mavens who slimed him last time would gleefully resume that task again should he run. They have already done a number on John Edwards haircuts and Barack Obama’s middle name in this election cycle. A Gore comeback would give them a field day to regurgitate all the lies and slanders from the past, and invent new ones.
Which makes it all the more vital to give progressive candidates alternatives to reach the public, whether blogs, YouTube or Progressive talk radio. Because the mainstream corporate media is not their friend. Or ours.