Monty Python's Life of Al Gore

Not only would this ticket win in 2008 by a landslide, it would guarantee the WH would be under progressive leadership for 16 years. --"Scubaval", Daily Kos, October 23, 2007

The quote above is from a Daily Kos post entitled "What Redstate wants to keep under wraps: Gore/Obama WILL Win". The post is just one of the many post-Nobel "Draft Gore" screeds around the 'Net. This particular post includes advice like:

This isn't going to happen just because we wish it so. NOW is the time to put our boots on the ground. Online polls and petitions, diaries expressing our undying (or at least smoldering) love for Al Gore, and commenting on each other's brilliance in bringing more news are terrific tools, but there's more to be done.

Then the author goes on to list ideas on how to talk-up how great Al Gore is, get him on the ballot in various states and write articles for the local paper about the experience of having love for Al Gore.

Nothing makes for a good cult like an invisible leader.

I'm generally fond of the politics of Mr. Al Gore. I'd vote for Al Gore before I'd vote for a lot of people, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson for instance. But I have some problems with the whole "Draft Al Gore" Cult. Namely:

1. Al Gore doesn't want to run for President, by all accounts save those of the Al Gore Cult.
   
2. Membership of the Al Gore Cult seems to be made up of the same exact people who were formally in the "Impeaching Bush Is An Inevitability Cult", which broke up sometime last week.
3. Al Gore Cult members seem to share an incredible simultaneous combination of myopic positivism and zero political awareness.
4. I'm not much for cults, invisible leader or otherwise.
5. It's always bothered me that Al Gore has become the Official Voice of "Global Warming" spokesperson. I don't know how much of that is Al Gore's fault and how much of it is the fault of the Al Gore Cult. Maybe the members of the Nobel Committee are member of the Al Gore Cult, or maybe it's just that movie. You know the one. Anyway, Global Warming is, in my view, one of the biggest obstacles facing us. Yet I wonder if sticking the face of Al Gore as Spokesperson for the issue really helps any more than having Jerry Lewis lead the fight against Muscular Dystrophy.

As most things remind me of movies, I picture Al Gore standing naked at a window, overlooking a vast horde of grinning, worshiping supplicants-in-waiting, just like Brian in "Life of Brian". I think I remember Brian in the movie closing the window in aghast horror and embarrassment. Not that that stopped the horde, if I recall correctly.