I call your attention to this article, which speaks for itself.

Make the Switch, Repower America

Al Gore has a new commercial on energy.

Health care is a right.

Via Marc Ambinder, Gore will lay out "an unprecedented challenge" on energy and climate change and will set a national goal for a "clean energy future."

Who: Former Vice President Al Gore

What: A discussion on the future of America's energy needs

Where: D.A.R. Constitution Hall ­ 1776 D St., NW, Washington, DC

When: Thursday, July 17 at 12:00 p.m. EDT

I won't be able to go, which is a shame. I went to Gore's last speech at DAR, the atmosphere was electrifying.

Later today.

I wonder if it will be as enthusiastic as mine....

Quite the paranoid holdout he is, waiting until even I hauled in.

This might be a good time to crank up the volume on this.

Al Gore gave a talk at the recent TED Conference. It’s an updated and abbreviated version of his climate change slide show, with both alarming new data on the increasing speed of climate change and some heartening information on the growing public awareness that we need to act and soon.  Read more…

Reuters:

"I have no plans to run," he said in the interview at Oslo's City Hall. Gore, a Democrat, lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush.

"I haven't ruled out the idea of getting back into the political process at some point in the future -- (I) don't expect to," Gore said. "But if I did get back, it would be as a candidate for president, not in any other position."

That clarifies matters for us all.

... check out this lead from Peter Baker in WaPo today:

What's wrong with this sentence?

The Draft Gore movement is trying to get the reluctant candidate onto ballots across the country.

[Vist draftgore.com and find local "meetup" groups by entering your zipcode here.]

Why can't more Democrats call this occupation what it really is instead of letting the other side frame the debate? Time. After. Time. What are Blue Dogs and other Bush enablers so afraid of? That they will give the other side a soundbite that could (possibly) be used against them in a future campaign? That they will be portrayed as unsympathetic to the troops?

Remember when Al Gore let it ride? Remember when the CBC told him all was Rotten! in Denmark. Remember? Now this.   Read more…

In the online version of Time, to complement the cover story on Al Gore, there's a survey about whether he should run for president in '08.

It appears that it's tabulated on a Diebold system:

• When this screen shot was taken, yes and no votes from Alaska were even
• What color does the tie-result default to?

I'm just sayin'....

Digby discovers that it's more important to look good than govern good:

MSNBC guest Karen Hanratty "Republican Strategist" on Gore:

There was a blind quote in one of the papers, actually Carville, James Carville said if he loses 15 pounds we'll know he's running, and I thought, it's going to take a lot more than that! (Gales of laughter on the panel.)

 Read more…

We're still waiting for that Sherman statement.... From a report in the Daily Telegraph (Hat tip, Big Orange's anoodle):

Friends of Al Gore have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House.

Two members of Mr Gore's staff from his unsuccessful attempt in 2000 say they have been approached to see if they would be available to work with him again.

One of his former campaign team said: "I was asked whether I would be available towards the end of the year if I am needed. They know he has not ruled out running and if he decides to jump in, he will have to move very fast.

"He hasn't asked them to do this, but nor has he told them not to."

Among the senior officials not yet committed is Michael Whouley, who was national field director for the successful Clinton-Gore 1992 presidential campaign, national campaign manager for Mr Gore when he stood for re-election as vice-president in 1996, and then a senior adviser to Mr Gore in 2000.

The Big Dog thinks Gore might run:

Saw this while putzing around on the internets this evening: Gore Mulling Third Party Run In '08:

Nearly a decade too late, Queen Heather Maureen Dowd figures out that the nerdy guy she belittled was the pick of the crop.

Gore is now up by two votes:

• The Economist
• Joe Scarborough

In Federal Way, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, in a region of America that is perceived to be Liberal, the school board has a poorly worded policy that is preventing the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in classrooms! From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

 Read more…

This is a whole new deal. Democrats at the helms of both houses.

What's more, an ample majority in the House means a few outliers won't impede progressive action.

The Senate "majority," though, is a delicate thing. 49-49, with two independents who — we hear — will sit with the donkey caucus. With Dick Cheney waiting in the wings to break ties.

Clearly, the Senate needs bold leadership. As I see it, there is one person there who has stood on the right, and reality-based, side of every important issue. And so I wrote him this note:

I had a bit of fun this evening. Al Gore was in town to present "An Inconvenient Truth" in L.A. today. He apparently did a Q&A at the Arclight--which I missed--but he then went to introduce the open-air, free screening at the California Plaza in downtown. We were also treated to a few songs by Jon Bon Jovi, and Mayor Villaraigosa said a few words as well.

Okay, perhaps that title is unfair; gasbags are members of the human race, and I know that. And they are authentically gasbags. We all know that.

"Wish You Were Gore," performed by The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.

(to the tune of the Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here")

 Read more…

Whenever I, or any other blogger, takes on someone like Maureen Dowd or Andrew Sullivan, inevitably a number of commentators question why any of us bother to pay attention to these media absurdities. Why not just ignore them?

The short answer: Because they and their ilk rule our discourse, politically, surely, and even, in many ways, culturally. On any list of what got George Bush elected, both in 2000 and 2004, appearing right below Bush-Rove would surely be the performance of the SCLM.

It has been the aim of this two-part post to show that even a writer as apparently "liberal" as Frank Rich is a fully committed member of the SCLM club, all dues paid up, which means that Rich is just as likely to include clueless dissing, in his columns, of all Democrats and all liberals and progressives, using the same fictional narratives and unexamined tropes as a Chris Matthews, or a Joe Klein, or any of the other names on that despairingly long list of media whores you might care to name.

Below the fold we will examine Frank Rich's response to Al Gore's October 2002 speech on Iraq, which presented a thorough, nuanced, unapologetic critique of the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq, and the consequent failures of its foreign policy initiatives everywhere. As a strident critic of the Bush administration, who had, himself, written negatively about the Bush drive to invade Iraq, you might have thought that Rich would have welcomed Gore's speech.

Part One of this post can be found here.
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Instead, he ignored it. Though not because he ignored Gore. No, indeed; Al Gore was back on the political scene, and there was fun to be had.

src="http://static.flickr.com/64/157319611_3de2402715_m.jpg" width="128" height="240" alt="Frank Rich Daumier" />

Twas not always so. Actually, it's not really all that "so" even now.

This Sunday, as you may have heard, Frank Rich put his imprimatur, (a somewhat muddy paw print as it turns out), on the possibility of a 2008 Gore run for President.

A more insulting endorsement would be hard to imagine.

I know that Frank Rich has become something of a hero to many of us who populate the left-of-center blogisphere, but let me be clear; the hero referenced in the tag "Heroes and Heroines" is Al Gore, not Frank Rich.

If you think that Frank Rich is on the side of any configuration of political beliefs that could be called liberal or progressive, if you think that Frank Rich is one wit different from any of the dim bulbs who make up the firmament of American punditry, you just haven't been paying attention.