It might have been" (AP*):
Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace...
The Nobel Prize-winning former vice president...
Ouch!
... said fellow Democrat Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain are "way ahead" of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.
That's interesting, isn't it?
Bill Clinton did the same thing just the other day; praise McCain and Obama in the same sentence on climate. What's going on? Besides the obvious fact that they're both racists who hate the Unity
Pony.
Then there's Hecate's question, obvious in retrospect: Why, why didn't I riot in the streets in FL 2000?
NOTE * Yes, that asshole Ron Fournier (via).
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Maybe
they're using the Bono method of kissing ass when ass deserves to be kissed even slightly.
Al takes Bill's tepid due credit & raises it to high praise
Al calling McCain "way ahead" of "most politicans" is utterly ridiculous. Did he ever praise Hillary, by the way? Bill was far more restrained and productive with his comment, (as quoted by the links further down):
"I do think it's fair to say that, among all the Republicans, Sen. McCain had the best position on climate change. I think that Sen. Obama and the Democrats have a better position, but I think McCain deserves credit for moving his party."
Yglesias lumped Bill's and Al's "praise" [his word] of McCain as "incredibly unhelpful."
Stoller was outraged at Bill: Bill Clinton Praises McCain on Climate Change.
Nuance and fairness are hard for the Matts. It's a tough job, manufacturing enough Clinton hatred to keep the OFB
unified and tractable.
"Unhelpful" is one of those Broder-esque words
It's a symptom of Village Rot -- far more virulent than Kool-Aid, because in many respects the victim seems to act and think in normal fashion. I'm not sure of the disease vectors, but I'm imagining something like a tapeworm for the brain.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
why, oh why
does anyone listen to Matt Yglesias about anything?
He'll fall for whatever beltway cw is going around like he did on the war. How's your war goin again, Matt?
Gore's a Very Smart Politician
If you care more about ensuring the next President does something on climate change than ensuring the next President is Obama, which I think describes Gore, then I think he's being a very smart advocate here. It pushes McCain in the right direction by rewarding the steps he's taken and keeps open the possibility if McCain wins, Gore will have a voice on this issue in his administration. In other words, moving McCain further on this issue might not be smart partisan politics, in the sense it might help McCain in November, but it's good advocacy politics because the more you move McCain - and he seems more movable on this issue than most - the better off you'll be if he somehow ends up winning. It also puts pressure on Obama to further distance himself from McCain by being more aggressive than he currently is so as to win more praise from Gore.
Gore has endorsed Obama and, I think, wants a Democrat to win. But if Obama loses, we need for McCain to do all he can on climate change. Moreover, Obama's initial climate change proposals weren't very good. While he fixed it under pressure during the primary, keeping that pressure up, seems like it's a good thing. The last thing we need is for Obama to go wobbly on climate change. In that way, Gore has his eyes on really winning, which means getting the next president to do more on climate change and not simply getting the right letter after that president's name.
I'll buy that
Besides, I just realized it was Fournier reporting a tiny snippet from Gore, so must be taken with an ocean of salt.
Praising someone in advance for the thing you want them to do when you know they're iffy is a time-honored strategy. And as you sadly have to point out, that goes for both McCain AND Obama.
It's an exciting move, too: "Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace."
I'm all for audacious.
Gore on climate: "Party invariant"
Right use of concept, gq?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Yep
And the reaction by the Matt's show exactly the problem with PB1.0: seeking power through Party/individuals blinds one from the long term objectives. Rather than get McCain on our side, they attack people on our side.