On Principles & Values:
Al & Tipper as model for “Love Story”?
Erich Segal began working on the script for Love Story while in residence [at Harvard while Gore was a student there]. He saw in Gore some of the elements for the character of Oliver Barrett IV, the blue-blooded Harvard hockey player who falls for
Jennifer Cavilleri, the smart-aleck Radcliffe musician. Segal sketched Barrett as an amalgam of [Gore’s roommate] Tommy Lee Jones--the tough guy with the poet’s soul--and Gore, who Segal recalled, was “always under pressure to follow in his father’s
footsteps.“
The literary footnote became an embarrassment to Gore three decades later when he suggested that he and his wife were models for the young lovers. Being merely part of the inspiration for Oliver wasn’t enough; he needed to be all of it.
Segal was forced several days later to concede that Gore was only half right about Oliver and completely wrong about Jenny. ”I did not draw a thing from Tipper,“ he said. ”I knew her only as Al’s date.“
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 58
On Defense:
Even as student at anti-war Harvard, Gore intended to serve
In the summer of 1967, just before the antiwar movement at Harvard intensified, military service was part of Al Gore’s plan. Gore’s cousin recalled a series of conversations in which it sounded like a sure thing. “Never, ever did he indicate to me that
he wasn’t going to go in,” the cousin recalled. Gore had no great passion for soldiering, but neither was it in his nature to buck the system.
But as Gore neared graduation, he found himself caught between two nearly irresistible forces: the newly
charged moral and political climate at Harvard and a deep sense of obligation to protect his father, whose antiwar position was imperiling his political future in Tennessee. Each wrenched at his conscience.
His Harvard friends remember Gore’s ethical
concerns, but they also recall a series of explicit signals from his parents about what needed to be done. “He said if he had my parents, he would have made a different decision,” said one friend. “He was committed to his father’s situation.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 60-3
On Defense:
Concluded Vietnam was a mistake, but had valid purpose
In 1988, Gore said that Vietnam “certainly matured me in a hurry. It gave me a tolerance for complexity. I didn’t change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not
take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang onto what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments [in the local people] was something I was naively unprepared for.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 87
On War & Peace:
Supported early action in Bosnia; no “Vietnam syndrome”
Gore’s war experience left him wary of the reflexive anti-interventionism--the so-called Vietnam Syndrome--that characterized Democratic attitudes towards foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s. As Vice President, he was a strong and early proponent
of military action in Bosnia. In Congress he supported intervention in the Persian Gulf and Grenada and, in some instances, aid to the Nicaraguan contras. “We’ve over-learned the lessons of Vietnam,” he said in 1984.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 87-8
On Principles & Values:
Born-again Baptist; serves God & obeys God’s will
His teachers at Vanderbilt Divinity school say that while Gore never intended to get a degree or to enter the ministry, he didn’t come across as a dabbler. A professor said, “He came to get what he wanted. The question of credentials was not important.
He learned what he felt he needed to know.”
When he returned to Washington to join the House of Representative, he and Tipper began attending Mount Vernon Baptist Church where they were “born again” in the late 1970s. He was also, at least through his
first vice presidential term, part of a small weekly prayer group, and friends say that religious faith is a cornerstone of his life. “I believe in serving God and trying to understand and obey God’s will for our lives,” Gore told Harvard students at
his 1994 commencement speech. “Cynics may wave the idea away, saying God is a myth, useful in providing comfort to the ignorant and in keeping them obedient. I know in my heart--beyond all arguing and beyond any doubt--the cynics are wrong.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 93-4
On Drugs:
Smoked pot recreationally, but kept it separate from work
Gore insisted as a presidential candidate in 1987 that his dope smoking was “infrequent and rare.” He said he smoked marijuana occasionally at Harvard, “once or twice in the army,” and “once or twice as a graduate student” before quitting altogether
in 1972. But Gore’s friends say that he remained an enthusiastic recreational user through the 1970s, during his newspaper career and up until his first congressional campaign in 1976. They remember him smoking dope as often as three or four times a week
Al Gore stoned was a mix of expansiveness and paranoia, friends recall. He could be ironically humorous and self-aware about his lot as heir apparent in a political family. But he was also worried about his bright future literally going up in smoke.
For the most part, Gore kept his off-duty explorations and newspaper work tidily partitioned. Most newsroom colleagues heard little about his religious studies and saw no evidence of his drug use.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.101
On Government Reform:
Gore as reporter uncovered City Hall zoning scandal
[In 1974 while Gore was a reporter at the Tenneseean], real estate developer Gilbert Cohen complained about his difficulty in securing a [zoning permit] in the district represented by Morris Haddox. Cohen thought he was merely prodding Gore into a
story on city council inefficiency. Gore told him he was onto something bigger.
The Tennesseean set up a joint sting operation with the district attorney. Cohen agreed to be wired for sound and met Haddox, with Gore parked just out of view.
Cohen asked what it would take to pass the permit. “It’ll take a grand to get it done,” said Haddox. The Tennesseean had a councilman cold, on audiotape & film, taking a bribe.
What looked to be a slam dunk ended in bitter defeat for Gore & his
paper when the Haddox case went to trial. It ended in a mistrial, the jury deadlocked 8-3 in favor of conviction, with one member undecided. Like his father’s defeat, the case was more painful evidence that righteousness did not guarantee victory.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.107-10
On Principles & Values:
Congressional campaign style: hard work & cautiousness
Gore’s first campaign was the only close race he ever ran in Tennessee. A look at how he won reveals the roots of an operating style that has remained largely intact for nearly 25 years: a relentless work ethic; tactical caution; passionate
advocacy of worthy but low-risk issues; and a willingness to revise, or simply muddy up, politically inconvenient positions. “Rekindling the American Spirit” was the bland, feel-good bicentennial tag line of the Gore campaign.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.118
On Gun Control:
Supported gun rights in 1970s, because his constituents did
Gore opposed additional gun registration laws in 1976, despite having written an editorial at the Tennesseean in which he decried the proliferation of cheap handguns. “It seemed to me he was trying to reposition himself, said his
Tennesseean editor. Gore bristled when reporters asked him about his newfound conservatism. ”I believe what I say,“ he protested. Privately, though, he was more candid. An editor recalls, ”Gore said, ‘Look, I’m running in a district where people
favor guns, and there’s no way I can win if I take a position that indicates I’m going to take away their guns. It’s as simple as that.’“
Local gun owners were no exactly sold on their new best friend Al Gore. Their instincts were right. As a senator
in 1990 he would support an unsuccessful attempt to ban assault-style weapons. A year later he voted for the Brady Bill, which required a 5-day waiting period and police background check for handgun purchases.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.119
On Abortion:
Two questions: Is abortion acceptable? Who should decide?
In 1992 on the David Frost Show, Gore said he still regarded abortion as the taking of “innocent human life” but conceded that he no longer used such phrases in letters because they are “so loaded with political charge.” He added, “I think many
of us have mixed feelings, because there are two questions involved. The first question is how you feel about an abortion in a given set of circumstances. And the second question is, who makes the decision? And regardless of how you and I might feel
about the rightness or wrongness of a given decision in a particular set of circumstances, I believe the government ought not to have the right to order a woman to accept its judgment about how to weigh the different aspects of the decision,
and order the woman to make the decision that government says she has to make, instead of leaving the decision to her. I’ve always believed that.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.122
On Principles & Values:
In Congress, called himself a “raging moderate”
Gore worked assiduously to avoid the left-wing labeling that had hastened the end of his father’s career. He dubbed himself a “raging moderate,” a term he thought captured his carefully confined activism. Although widely viewed by voters as a moderate,
his overall record leaned to the liberal side sometimes-especially in domestic affairs. He was a reliable liberal vote on economics, taxation, and labor matters, and some of his legislative impulses resonate today as classic “big government.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.132
On Environment:
Co-sponsored first Superfund bill, on Love Canal
In 1978 chemicals from an abandoned underground dump seethed into basements and backyards in he Love Canal neighborhood in upstate New York, [causing] an abnormal number of miscarriages and birth defects. [Gore’s father was a board member of its
corporate owner]. Gore considered recusing himself but decided that the issue was too important. Later that year he co-sponsored passage of the first Superfund bill, mandating a joint public-private effort to clean up the sites.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.137
On Defense:
Called for replacing MIRVed MX with single-warhead Midgetman
[After a teen audience said most of them believed they would see nuclear war in their lifetime], Gore resolved to become an arms control expert. There was a place in the debate for a moderate voice, he believed, one that bridged the chasm
between the emerging “nuclear freeze” movement and the bellicose rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and his Cold Warriors. He studied for more than a year and laid out his thoughts in a Senate floor speech in 1982.
Gore called for the US and USSR
to convert all their multiple-warhead missiles to single-warhead. Under Gore’s plan, the superpowers would agree to a freeze on new weaponry while they negotiated a schedule for converting from the huge MX to the Midgetman system. Although he didn’t
kill the MX, he managed to limit proliferation of a dangerous weapon (only fifty were finally deployed) and came close to carrying out his vision for the Midgetman.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.142-5 & p. 149-50
On Government Reform:
Supported “PAC participation in the political process”
[During his Senate campaign in 1984], Gore had sponsored legislation that limited PAC money, but that didn’t stop him from soaking up every PAC dime he could under existing rules. He caucused with PAC representatives, highlighting the votes he had made
in their favor. “I am a strong supporter of PAC participation in the political process,” he told PAC Manager, a PAC newsletter. “I need to raise large sums of money, and I have enjoyed getting involved with the PAC community.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.153
On Health Care:
Could “never vote against” anti-smoking lobby
[While working on the new cigarette warning labels in 1983, Gore told an anti-smoking lobbyist], “When push comes to shove, you will have me. I can’t in good conscience ever vote against you.” Gore took it upon himself to contact the Tobacco Institute,
the industry’s lobbying arm, to ask whether there was room for compromise. It looked like there was. [A version of Gore’s bill passed in 1984.]
Lobbyists had thought Gore was “a conventional pol from a tobacco state” who “could wax nostalgic about the
patriotic glories of tobacco farming.“ Lobbyists never knew for certain what happened, how Gore had shifted from ”yes, if absolutely necessary“ into a self-appointed broker. Gore may have decided that the political benefits outweighed the risks back
home, especially if the farmers were assured that their ability to grow tobacco and command a federally supported price would remain undisturbed. Lobbyists were not aware of Nancy Gore Hunger’s illness, Gore’s sister who was dying from lung cancer.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.156-7
On Civil Rights:
Tipper & Al pushed for voluntary record lyric labeling
[Tipper and Al were stunned by the explicit violence in rock lyrics] when their children, ages 6 and 8, began to ask questions about things they had seen on MTV videos. Tipper, who as a teenager had inscribed “Rolling Stones Forever” on her old
boyfriend’s 45rpm, was now an anxious mother of preadolescents. “These images frightened my children; they frightened me!” she wrote in her 1987 book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society.. Tipper co-founded the Parents Music
Resource Center and petitioned record makers for “voluntary self-restraint,” proposing a categorical rating system similar to the one employed by the film industry. In a committee hearing, Al Gore said about record executives, “I think they should take
a look at what their companies are doing and just ask themselves whether or not this is the way they want to spend their lives, if this is the way they want to earn a living.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.168-72
On Defense:
Against SDI & more carriers; for Grenada & nuclear freeze
[In the 1988 presidential campaign, Gore debated sharply with six other Democratic contenders] over the proposed “Star Wars” defensive shield, which Gore opposed. [A reporter at the time] called it his “one moment of passion.”
Gore searched for ways
to differentiate himself from the Democratic pack: as Al Gore, national security candidate, the only one willing to use force to protect America’s vital interests. He was a recognized player in he arms control debate and collaborated with the Reagan
White House on the MX missile compromise. [He pointed out that he] had supported the Grenada invasion and the flagging of Kuwaiti tankers in the Persian Gulf and opposed a ban on ballistic missile test flights.
But on major defense issues Gore was
solidly in the Democratic mainstream. He had supported the nuclear freeze and sharp limits on Star Wars spending, opposed funds for two new aircraft carriers and, until the campaign, most aid to the Nicaraguan contras.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.194
On War & Peace:
Committed to the survival & security of Israel
[In the 1988 presidential campaign, Gore] denounced Jesse Jackson for his embrace of Yasser Arafat and assailed front-runner Michael Dukakis as “absurdly timid” for not confronting him. “I categorically deny Jackson’s notion that there’s a moral
equivalency between Israel and the PLO,” he said. “In a Gore administration, no one will have reason to doubt America’s commitment to the survival and security of Israel.” Gore rejected the newest White House proposal of a land-for-peace deal.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.209
On Technology:
Assisted heavily with invention of Internet in 1989
In 1989, Gore introduced the National High-Performance Computer Technology Act, a five-year, $1.7 billion program to expand the capacity of the information highway to connect government, industry, and academic institutions. Signed by President Bush in
1991, the bill supported research and development for an improved national computer system, and assisted colleges and libraries in connecting to the new network. While Gore is not, as he suggested in 1999, the father of the Internet, he can credibly
claim credit as the wealthy uncle who stepped up to provide funds at an important moment. In 1989, when few public officials grasped the profound changes that new information technology would bring, Gore saw them plainly. “I genuinely believe that the
creation of this nationwide network will create an environment where work stations are common in homes and even small businesses,” he told a House committee in the spring of 1989.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.217
On Families & Children:
Son’s accident taught Gore sensitivity & better parenting
[In 1989, Gore’s son, Albert III, suffered a near-fatal traffic accident]. The aftermath of the accident led to Tipper’s treatment for depression. In response to the near-loss of Albert, & perhaps to his wife’s depression, Gore became more conscientious
about blocking out time in the schedule for the kids’ school games and birthdays. He also worked at becoming a nicer boss. He made, said one former campaign consultant, “a much more conscious effort, in his own methodical way, to be sensitive to people.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.227
On War & Peace:
Supported Gulf War; costs of war less than alternative
[In Jan. 1991], with nearly 400,000 troops bug into the Saudi desert, Bush was asking Congress to approve the use of force in the Persian Gulf. Although Gore tended to oversell the hawkish aspects of his record in 1988, he had never been a “Vietnam
Syndrome” Democrat, reflexively opposing any projection of American force. He was also squarely on record against the threat posed by Iraq. In the fall of 1988 he had twice called on the Reagan administration to take a hard line against Saddam for his
use of chemical weapons against Iran and his own Kurdish population.
On the Senate floor in 1991, Gore said, “I have struggled to confront this issue. [and] to strike a balance. The risks of war are horrendous. The real costs of war are also
horrendous. But what are the costs and risks if the alternative policy does not work? I think they are larger, greater, more costly.” Gore joined 9other Democrats who broke ranks on a 52-47 vote to authorize the use of force in the Persian Gulf.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.238-9
On Budget & Economy:
Deficit Hawk for balancing 1993 budget, but not ideological
Gore’s executive style as Vice President carried all the earmarks of his legislative career-keen intellect, fierce competitiveness, self-righteousness, and caution punctuated by bursts of boldness. Gore was “a new Age pragmatist,” as one aide put it,
with no consistent ideological coloring, capable of landing on Clinton’s left or right depending on the issue. In the debate over the early economic program, he sided with the “deficit hawks” who favored deep reductions in red ink to win the confidence
of the bond market. At the same time he pushed unsuccessfully to raise revenue with a controversial, broad-based energy tax favored by the environmental movement. In 1995 Gore pushed Clinton to offer a balanced budget of his own to compete with the plan
presented by Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans. When other aides urged Clinton to close a deal with the GOP, Gore insisted that the administration hold out to protect Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs from severe cuts.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.269
On Environment:
Pushed for BTU tax on coal & gas, in 1993
Although Gore had toned down his environmental rhetoric during the 1992 campaign, he saw the 1993 economic package as an opportunity to push for the green movement’s tax of choice: a broad-based levy based on the use of energy as measured in BTUs
(British thermal units). A BTU tax would fall most heavily on coal and other fossil fuels, encouraging industry to use less polluting sources like natural gas. Gore believed that adoption of a BTU tax, which would raise an estimated $72 billion over five
years, could kindle support for similar measures in Europe and Japan, accelerating global environmental renewal. [After passing in the House and stalling in the Senate, the BTU tax was] replaced by a more politically palatable gasoline tax.
The
setback, said an environmental lobbyist, seemed to yank Gore back into his campaign-season zone of caution on environmental issues, as if he had been caught straying too far ahead-and to the left-of what the political system would bear.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.270-1
On Defense:
Quicker than Clinton to favor force; but avoided it in Haiti
Gore was inherently quicker than Clinton to favor military force as an option. Even before official CIA reports confirmed Saddam Hussein’s involvement in a foiled plot to assassinate former President Bush with a car bomb on a visit to Kuwait City, Gore
urged a tense and tentative Clinton to launch a retaliatory cruise missile attack.
Gore’s instincts were the same in the Balkans. At meeting after meeting, Gore argued passionately for bombardment to force the Serbs to the peace table [regarding
Bosnia]. He and Clinton were not together on the issue. But after the administration was unable to persuade European allies to join them, even Gore stood down.
His impulses weren’t unswervingly hawkish, however, and he brought a willingness to think
outside of the box to solve problems. He was the administration’s most consistently vocal supporter of former president Jimmy Carter’s intervention into the diplomatic crises in North Korea and Haiti. Both ended successfully.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.275-6
On Government Reform:
“Reinvention” caused some reform, but nothing fundamental
“Reinventing Government,” or REGO, was a classic New Democrat idea-fix government, don’t demolish it. In 1993, Clinton named Gore to head a six-month examination of the federal government called the National Performance Review (NPR). Gore’s report made
384 recommendations for streamlining and energizing the bureaucracy and promised $108 billion in savings and a 12% cut in the federal workforce-252,000 jobs-by 1998.
His reinvention quest ultimately led to some significant reforms, principally in the
area of purchasing practices. But Gore failed to entertain the fundamental questions as he launched REGO: What does government do? Could someone else do it better? Gore’s efforts add up to a mixed picture. By 1998 the federal payroll had been reduced
by 330,000 positions (15.4%), mostly at the Defense Department. In the end Gore’s REGO probably did save the government some money and certainly helped make it smaller. But it was not redesigned, reinvented, or reinvigorated, as he set out to do.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.278-83
On Free Trade:
Debate with Perot was instrumental in passing NAFTA
In the fall of 1993 the White House faced heavy opposition to NAFTA from labor and House Democrats. The opposition said the accord would accelerate the exodus of high-paying manufacturing jobs across the border. That point was made most vividly by Ross
Perot, who predicted that it would produce a “giant sucking sound” made by the companies headed for Mexico. [In preparing for the televised debate with Perot, Gore] spotted a magazine photograph of the protectionist authors of the 1930 Smoots-Hawley
tariff act, widely believed to have worsened the Depression, and during the debate Gore presented it to an irritated Perot. Gore also asked Perot about the free trade zone operated by Perot’s son at his Texas airport, which was promoted as a gateway to
business in Mexico. “If it’s good enough for him, why isn’t it good enough for the rest of the country?” Gore asked. Gore’s strong performance and Perot’s meltdown changed the dynamic of the NAFTA debate. The pact passed the House 234-200.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.283-5
On Government Reform:
Fundraising from White House? Maybe. Candor & caution? No.
In 1995, Gore phoned 52 potential Democrat donors, securing nearly $800,000 in commitments. Gore placed the calls from his White House office, putting him at odds with an 1882 law that barred federal employees from soliciting or receiving campaign
contributions in a federal building. The Pendleton Act was a relic, but it was still observed by members of Congress, who routinely left their offices to make fund-raising calls from other locations.
It was not clear whether Pendleton applied to
the vice president. But what was clear was that his usually circumspect instincts had been flattened by the money hunt.
No court case had ever determined the legality of a situation like Gore’s; thus Gore concluded there was “no
controlling legal authority” that barred Gore from making the calls in his office. Gore also announced that while he had done nothing wrong, he would never do it again.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.298-9 & p.323-4
On Technology:
Supported V-Chip; pushed TV execs for rating system
Gore made the entertainment industry one of his principal election-year targets in the values offensive. The new telecommunications bill he championed included a provision Hollywood had fought for years, the so-called V-chip to help parents
electronically deflect shows and movies they didn’t want their kids to see. The law mandated the V-chip in most new sets and gave the industry one year to devise a “voluntary” ratings system to determine which programs would be blocked.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.305-6
On Government Reform:
Buddhist temple fundraiser: overzealous but probably legal
Three weeks before election day in 1996, Gore attended a fund-raiser at the His Lai Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. The event raised $140,000, despite federal laws that prohibit holding partisan political events at institutions with tax-exempt status.
Some of the temple’s nuns and monks, who had taken vows of poverty, admitted to serving as illegal “straw” donors, writing checks for up to $5,000 and receiving immediate reimbursement from temple officials.
“I did not know it was a fund-raiser,” Gore
said in 1997, contending that he believed he was attending a goodwill event. Some details support that contention: after lunch, he delivered a standard stump speech praising racial and ethnic diversity. There were none of the usual thank-yous he offered
to groups of contributors for their financial support.
Exactly what Gore knew may never be completely clear. But the episode suggests that Gore’s zeal for election money in 1996 eroded his judgment, sense of propriety, and usual attention to detail.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.313-4 & p.319-22
On Environment:
Pushed emissions trading plan at Kyoto greenhouse summit
In Gore’s view, there could be no breakthroughs, especially on global warming, until the public saw a clear & present danger. “The people haven’t given us permission to lead on this issue,” he said.
Nevertheless, at the Kyoto summit, the administration
proposed a binding commitment to return CO2 emissions to 1990 levels between 2008 & 2012. After that, a series of market mechanisms would be employed to drive emissions below the 1990 baseline by 2017. They included an international trading system in
which pollution permits could be bought and sold, giving companies incentive to cut emissions and sell their rights to another firm for a profit.
In his speech to the Kyoto delegates, Gore said that the real challenge was to change the human behaviors
that were causing climate change. Gore’s whirlwind visit changed the dynamics of the conference. All sides gave ground. The US promised to cut emissions 7% below the 1990 levels between 2008 & 2012; the Europeans committed to 8% and Japan to 6%.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.334-6
On Principles & Values:
“One of our greatest Pres.” but “disappointed” by Clinton
[In August 1998, after his Monica testimony, Clinton concluded,] “Now this matter is between me, the two people I love most, my wife and daughter, and our God.” Gore praised Clinton for acknowledging his mistakes before the American people, but steered
clear of any specific character endorsement. In September, Gore reaffirmed his friendship with Clinton but made a point of calling his conduct “indefensible.” In a September cabinet session, Gore told Clinton he was “disappointed,” concluding with a
blunt warning: “Mr. President, I think most of America has forgiven you, but you’ve got to get your act together.” In December, after the House impeachment vote, Gore said, “I do believe this is the saddest day I have seen in our nation’s capital. The
president has acknowledged that what he did was wrong, but invoking the solemn power of impeachment is wrong. What happened as a result does a great disservice to a man I believe will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.347-50 & p.356
The above quotations are from Inventing Al Gore, by Bill Turque.
Click here for a profile of Al Gore.
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