Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
The new, improved Al Gore tells Salon he suspects demonizing Saddam was a Bush campaign ploy -- and explains why it took him so long to speak out.
Nov 23, 2002 | Before Al Gore begins taking heat from his political opponents, he has plenty of answering to do to his past supporters. Gore's reemergence on the national stage this month has brought enthusiastic crowds to book signings, but it has also unleashed some pent-up anger from formerly friendly quarters.
In a Nov. 4 article, the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg criticized Gore for leaving the national stage after he conceded the presidency to George Bush. "He fell silent. He did not accept -- and apparently did not perceive -- the responsibility that his popular-vote victory had laid upon him," Hertzberg wrote. "At a crucial moment he essentially left voiceless those who had placed their trust in him." And The New Republic opined that Gore's speech criticizing the administration's Iraq policy "consisted of neither honest criticism nor honest opposition. Rather, it sounded like a political broadside against a president who Gore no doubt feels occupies a post that he himself deserves." (The Iraq speech did signal something of a departure for Gore. In the Senate, Gore was one of the most hawkish of Democrats when it came to Saddam Hussein. And it was with Gore's support that the Clinton administration formally adopted the U.S. position of regime change in Iraq.)
His latest bombshell, which he dropped this past week as he and wife Tipper toured the country promoting their book, "Joined at the Heart," was a rather startling shift on healthcare policy. During the presidential campaign, Gore attacked former primary opponent Bill Bradley for making universal healthcare coverage the centerpiece of his campaign. But last week Gore told a crowd in New York that he had "reluctantly" come to support a plan for universal coverage. Gore says he supports a "single-payer system," but one very different from the Canadian system, in which the government pays for and provides health coverage. Gore has provided the vaguest of outlines for the plan, saying only that his plan would have to be "privately run and offer Americans choices." Beyond that, he has not spoken about his healthcare plans in any detail, promising to flesh them out after the new year.
And that has started the sniping from more expected quarters. An aide to Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., scoffed that Gore's new embrace of universal healthcare coverage was simply a ploy to help Gore appeal to liberals in the Democratic primaries. But even a former Gore pollster, Harrison Hickman, sniffed to the Wall Street Journal this week, "He needs to do something different to capture people's attention ... On the other hand, if he does something different, then people will say, 'There he goes again.'" Is Gore ready for a new round of combat? He says that this time around, he's going to stick to his guns and "let the chips fall where they may." Polls show him as the clear front-runner among prospective Democratic candidates, but he insists that he has still not made up his mind about 2004 and is just trying to sell a few books before the holidays. Gore spoke to Salon from his hotel in Seattle in-between book signings.
First you go into isolation for a while. Now you're everywhere. How long before the criticism that you're overexposed?
[Laughs.] Well, you're the first one to ask that one. Congratulations. No, I don't know the answer to that. Maybe the holidays will intervene.
It does speak, though, to the Catch-22 you were facing after the election. Clearly, some wanted you to form a sort of government in exile and others wanted you to go away.
It was about 51-49, I think. But I needed the time off, and I think the country needed the break from politics, also.
Looking back, do you think that your absence deprived your supporters of a voice?
Possibly so. I can see that point of view. I would do the same thing over again for the same two reasons that led me to make that decision the first time around. I felt like after the divisive campaign and the 36 days and the questions many were posing concerning the legitimacy of the new president, I just felt that where the country was concerned it was better for me to leave the stage, at least for a while. You know, 150 years ago when Andrew Jackson took a different approach, it was a different country and a different time. Now with the U.S. as the acknowledged leader of the world, and so much riding on presidential leadership, I did not feel it was responsible for me to run a rear-guard guerrilla campaign for four years to try to undermine the legitimacy of the president. I don't think that's good for the country.
But also, on a more human level, I needed some time off, and after a quarter century in politics, I wanted to get some financial security for my family, and I wanted to get away from the public spotlight for a while. And for those who disagree with that decision, I respect the disagreement. I understand it came at some cost, and that's just the way it is. I would make the same decision again.
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