John,
Re: "Oh Albert, Where Art Thou?"
Oh Albert, Where Art Thou?
"EVERY DAY, it becomes more and more obvious that a dreadful wrong has
been done to Al Gore. No, not the outcome of the 2000 election, though that
would have been gruesome for anyone. The election was a tie, each side had
grounds to complain about one court or another, and each had reason to believe
that some fluke had cost it an unknowable number of votes. In the end, the bad
luck on both sides probably worked out to the same kind of tie that prevailed
in everything else having to do with that election, but it was inevitable that
the loser would be sentenced to a lifetime of gut-churning anguish. There is a story
that after his 49 state wipeout in 1984 Walter Mondale asked George McGovern how
long it took him to recover from his 49-state wipeout 12 years earlier; McGovern
told him he would let him know when he did.
But the real wrong done Gore was less that he lost than that he had had such
a dreadful time doing it, and may have had a bad time for much of his life.
David Remnick at the New Yorker has developed an intriguing small sideline
profiling politicians who could have been president but slipped up and
lost everything, his previous takes being Gary Hart, who could have been
president if not for the Monkey Business; and Mario Cuomo, who might have
been president if he had run in 1992, but who, when Remnick got to him, was
reduced to hosting an unlistened-to talk show."
Make It So,
Yousef |
