Personal Asides: Al Gore’s House…Barack Obama’s Mother.

Gore’s House.

The wispy, wannabe-liberal-but-then-maybe-oughtta-be-conservative Tribune, the newspaper that hasn’t figured out what it believes, had another baffling editorial Saturday on Al Gore. Usually “Tribune” editorials are dry-as-dust, winding up asking “who knows?” or advising us to “stay tuned”—in lieu of taking a stand. Who wrote it is anybody’s guess—maybe the ex-cookbook editor who’s on the editorial board. If it were she, she compared Gore to Winston Churchill in that both lost an election, Churchill in 1945, Gore in 2000. Both men bore up under disappointment and became greater for their disappointment, says the editorial. Inexplicably, there the editorial’s reference to Churchill ends, failing to note that he staged a comeback in 1951 and in his second round as prime minister gave the West the same kind of sinew to oppose communist despotism as he had Nazi tyranny—probably because the contrast is so inappropriate, Gore moving so far to the left, denouncing the war on terrorism and attacking the president of the United States as to confound many who voted for him earlier.

In a “comeback,” the “Tribune” notes, Gore “won” an Academy Award for the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Well, won is not the correct word; he was featured in the documentary that was produced and directed and edited by others. But he was given the Oscar to hold before the cameras in tribute to Hollywood leftism as a symbol, let’s say that. Then the “Tribune” rhapsodizes, “You don’t have to agree with Gore to say that in many ways, he’s better in this career than he was in his last one. He no longer conveys the impression of a man trying to be something he’s not…” That the roof didn’t fall in when the writer rolled that egregious lie off the computer testifies to a God with a sense of humor who wants the irony to hang heavy.

Not long after he posed with the Oscar, another inconvenient truth surfaced to bite its master. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research pointed out that his mansion in Tennessee uses twenty times the energy of the average national household which the “Tribune” acknowledges with these words: “…he found himself accused of hypocrisy by conservatives who say his Tennessee mansion uses more electricity in a month than the average American home uses in a year.” If this is true—and the newspaper does not deny it—why laud Gore for a sensational comeback? Probably because the editorial was begun before the disclosure and when the disclosure surfaced midway in the writing, somebody decided to go with it anyhow.

Any editorial page editor worth his salt should have spiked the embarrassing “Tribune” serenade. Gore no longer “conveys” the impression of a man trying to be something he’s not—he still masquerades as a different man than he is: an energy waster trying to be lauded as an energy saver and preaching to us how we are contributing to a world crisis by being energy hogs…while his hypocrisy is almost unduplicated (unless you consider another liberal hypocrite, John Edwards, whose mansion runs for seeming blocks in rural South Carolina and runs up the same size energy bills.). The same people who oppose school vouchers that would help the poor escape the tyranny of inner-city schools victimized by monopoly while sending their own kids to private schools, are those who blister the rest of us for consuming too much energy while stoking up their own homes with the very offenses they condemn others for. Thus it is with liberals and the reason that so often before you get to the word liberal you inevitably hit the word “phony.”

Near the end of the editorial, the “Tribune” serenades Gore with this: “[T]oday he’s proof that losing doesn’t make you a loser.” How in the world can a newspaper not avoid suffocating giggles behind its cupped palm after writing that sanctimonious drivel? Even the dead fish wrapped in it deserves a better send-off than to be surrounded with that offal.

Obama’s Mother.

Only Eric Zorn would see racism behind a question asking him to ascertain whether or not Barack Obama’s mother is alive or dead. It is offensive to ask about her! The fact that she is dead means that the questioner wants to revel in her death—either that or a snide attempt to hint at Barack’s ancestry. You don’t ask questions of idols in this fantasy world of political correctness liberals inhabit. Smacks of the worst in racism! The question hearkens back to the old era of hate that Zorn overcame when in his dreams he walked across the Selma bridge. They who weren’t around when battles were fought and won are the wavers of the bloody shirt. Only he and his alter-ego name-calling S.C.A.M. sock puppet…(teases Zorn: I know who he is; he’s a person distinct from me and I won’t tell you!)…would be offended at questions about Obama’s mother. For mentioning questions about Bambi, the S.C.A.M. name-calling sock puppet whom Zorn knows and won’t reveal, is agitating to get me fired as a talk-show host: there’s as much tolerance in the S.C.A.M. sock puppet as with all other liberals.

The liberal religion adhered to by Zorn and his S.C.A.M. sock puppet name-calling buddy recognizes no bigotry except the fancied racial kind. Not long ago John Edwards had to make a decision about what to do with a paid blogger in his campaign. He hired her to lead his Internet movement, then fired her after she spewed out an anti-Catholic tirade, then re-hired her, followed by his admonition not to hate any more. Then she—Amanda Marcotte—quit. Among her gems: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?” It didn’t offend Zorn or his S.C.A.M. sock puppet. Now if it had been anti-Muslim, of course, that would have been different. It’s not bigotry to hate Catholic dogma because we unbelievers are detached from all but liberal politics which is our church. One of these days Zorn’s sock-puppet buddy will choke on his own bile.