Several issues linger in the air as the dust settles over the latest so-called “Drudge Smear Machine” story. What is the Tennessee Center for Policy Research? Where did it procure Al Gore’s electric bills, and is that information part of public record? Is the report accurate? How many individuals occupied Gore’s Nashville household, and what context do we need for those figures? How much direct control did he have over the utility usage? Does the level of energy expended reflect an inconsistency of Gore’s championship of environmental issues with his personal practices?
That’s what I want to know. I needn’t bother, however, because both U.S. political oligarchies have the answer for me. Take your pick: (a) The Right Wing Smear Machine, including Matt Drudge, can’t stand to see a Democrat validated for his life’s work and is out to destroy anyone on the left. (b) Al Gore is a hypocrite and none of the claims from his film can possibly be valid.
“Is Matt Drudge an accomplice to a felony?” suggests one blog.
Yet there’s a difference between an accomplice to a felony and an accomplice to a fallacy. Drudge has been there, done that with Gore before. He reported in December 1997 that the Vice President’s plane burned 439,500 pounds of fuel en route to the U.N. Global Warming Conference in Kyoto. A subsequent Drudge Special Report introduced the world to Al’s childhood nanny, Mattie Lucy Payne. Payne was the African-American housekeeper in the employ of Senator and Mrs. Albert Gore, Senior. Payne was quoted as saying that she sometimes joined the family on road trips to “Mr. Albert’s” office in Washington…and waited in the car while the Gore family dined at “Whites Only” restaurant. (Young Al would bring a sandwich out to the car.)
At the end of the day, both stories are worthy of discussion. Will they, should they, really affect our view of the former Vice-President?
Sure, Gore could have taken a boat – or at least TWA like the common folk – to Kyoto to address the dangers of global warming. Sure, teenage Al could have sat in the car with his black nanny or staged an impromptu sit-in at the restaurant parking lot. But on the whole, ideal possibilities are logistically impractical. (In the rural South where the Gores drove through during that era, finding a restaurant convenient to the highway where blacks and whites could dine together may have been as possible as packing VPOTUS on a trans-Pacific steamer or an aisle seat next to Joe Commuter.)
What should news consumers make of these three reports – and of Drudge’s decision to run them? If Gore grew up in a family that tolerated racial discrimination on any level…and he chose as a child or teen to join his family in a “Whites Only” restaurant while their housekeeper sat outside…is his own civil right legacy tainted because of his parents’ actions? If Gore had to guzzle gas on Air Force Two in 1997 or run up a hefty electric bill last month, does it follow that recycling and conserving energy are futile exercises and an unreasonable expectation of you and me? Is Gore’s message – or Drudge’s message – merely a convenient philosophy?
As a Tennessean with more intimate knowledge of Al Gore than most Americans, and as someone who has followed Matt Drudge’s career than perhaps anyone else online, I can suffer their trashing so long as it is supported by correct information.
My strong impression of the man I first knew as Senator is that he has noble intentions and an informed opinion on all things environmental. Trust me, I recycle and you won’t find my fingerprints on the lethal weapon that mows down the ozone layer. But cognitive dissonance is an equal-opportunity destroyer of judgment, and maybe there’s too much riding on this brand. In his own nanny’s words, “Mr. Albert had it in his mind that Al would be in the White House.” We can’t know what Gore’s future political ambitions or agenda are, but intuition’s all we have when facts are scarce. That Gore has invested so much of his career and his energy on this cause calls his neutrality into question. Should we disregard the statistics in An Inconvenient Truth? No, but we should supplement them.
Were Matt Drudge genuinely interested in toeing the line with his political allies, he would not take repeated jabs at Schwarzenegger on his radio show (which he did again last Sunday night) – however cheap, however subtle. Even though he linked tonight to the story of the California Governor putting his jet on a Global Warming Registry, Drudge wouldn’t cannibalize off a hand that supposedly feeds him. He has consistently defended his philosophy and his layman’s interpretation of global warming data– that he’s unconvinced humanity impacts global warming to the degree that Gore claims. I go to Drudge for arguments, not answers.
The bottom line is that someone has taken the time to write and expedite these press materials, which has gotten quite a bit of media love. The news, therefore, is that someone has reported the electric bill story as news, and the news is that it has become news. This is a story with ramifications. End of story. (Got all that?)
I don’t get my diet tips from Al Gore or my fashion tips from Matt Drudge, and I don’t glean my environmental science data from either of them. I am open to what either have to say and respect their biased expertise, such as it is. Because ultimately the global warming question is not scientific or political – it is philosophical. It is epistemological. And it’s unknowable! My agenda is to drive the point home that no agenda can be positively identified or quantified. In the end, all we have are questions, and ramifications, hypotheses, and more questions. Sometimes new information comes along, and regardless of the intentions of the disseminator, it’s worth a look. And that is an inconvenient truth.
by RegoPark - 11:34 pm
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