In a new column available at the right-wing site
Real Clear Politics, George Will sets a trap for Al Gore. I'm more than reasonably certain that Gore will refuse to take the bait, but it's worth analyzing Will's column and trying to expose the hidden assumptions underlying his attempt to create a no-win situation for Our Guy.
Jump with me now for the details.
Before entering this debate, it's important to clarify a couple of my assumptions. First, and most importantly, I do not argue that Will has set what I call his "trap for Gore" in a deceitful or dishonest way. Will very likely sincerely sees the no-win situation he attempts to create for Gore as an accurate assessment of Gore's current options. He's wrong, I think, and I'll explain why. But if there's any dishonesty in Will's argument, it likely consists of the author's willful blindness to the flaws in his assumptions. In any event, in this era of ad hominem attacks on messengers bearing inconvenient truths, this diary should be read as a criticism of Will's argument. I make no claim that, in this instance, Will acts deceitfully or out of anything less than a sincere desire to contribute to the national debate on catastrophic climate change and I would disown any attempt to interpret this diary in any other way.
OK, having established my "Hate the sin, love the sinner" bona fides, on to Will's article.
Will's central premise is that "if Gore means what he is saying," he must run for President in 2008. Referring to the interview of Gore on ABC's "This Week" last Sunday, Will writes:
[The interview] signaled an important alteration of the competition for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination -- that is, if Gore means what he is saying, and he seems painfully sincere.
"Less than 10 years.'' That, Gore warns, is all the time that "leading scientists'' say we may have "before we cross a point of no return'' -- unless we make a "really good start toward dramatic changes'' to combat global warming. Ten years from now will be the last year of the second term of the next president, if he or she is re-elected. Surely Gore should strive to be that president, if he means [the] things he says or implies.
What things? Will identifies four: 1) that, in light of climate change, the decisions we now make regarding environmental policies will "determine the fate of civilization;" 2) that Gore better understands the problem than other political leaders; 3) that it is necessary to instill a sense of urgency in the public in order to create a political context in which the necessary policy changes can occur; and 4) the U.S. presidency has more influence than any position in the world.
Boiled down further, the equation looks like this: (Coming catastrophe) + (Best qualified to deal with it) + (Urgent need for change) + (Power of US President) = If he's sincere, Gore must want to be President. Refraining from running for President, Will suggests, would have the practical effect of denying himself the best forum for attacking this environmental emergency. Given Gore's (alleged) self-promotion as the The Go-To Guy on The Issue of The Day, were he to stay out of the Presidential sweepstakes, it would demonstrate that he is insincere about the urgency of the problem. Q.E.D.
Well, not quite.
Even if you put aside the snide accusation of egomania not terribly well-hidden in the second of Will's propositions, look a little closer at his argument and it bears more than a passing resemblance to a playground dare: "If you had the balls, you would (insert alleged brave act here)."
Will provides no analysis, or even serious thought, to the possibility that running for President would require trade-offs that would severely limit Gore's ability to be a (relatively) full-time advocate on climate change. First of all, as a private citizen running for no office, Gore can, for the most part control his own agenda. If he wants to talk about Iraq or medical care, he can. But he doesn't have to. He can more or less freely determine what portion of his life he wants to devote to spreading the word about catastrophic climate change.
By contrast, if Gore runs for President, he'll be (rightly) expected to advance policy proposals on a wider range of issues than he now has to confront. He will need to spend valuable time coming up with and explaining the policy a Gore administration would take on Venezuela and Chavez, or on immigration, or stem cell research. Doubtless he would have interesting things to say on some or all of those issues. But why must he sacrifice the freedom he has as non-candidate, especially if after surveying the Democratic field in the '08 race, he determines that the party has plenty of people who could articulate thoughtful, politically attractive positions on those issues, including some who could do a better job on specific issues than he could or than he would care to? Why would it be somehow morally questionable if Gore decided that he could do more good using his bully pulpit as the former Next President of the United States by organizing grassroots and corporate responses to climate change?
At some point, Gore may well decide that he can be more effective as a candidate, especially as a victorious candidate. But he knows firsthand the trade-offs one makes when one assumes that role. Will wants to bait Gore into running or else discredit Gore's "sincerity" about climate change by planting the idea that if he decides to forgo a run for the presidency, it undercuts Gore's claim to be an honest advocate on the issue. I believe Will is smart enough to know that Gore means what he says about running, namely, that he has no intention to run, that he can't imagine circumstances that would change his mind and that, because Gore knows his imagination can not possibly cover every future relevant scenario that could arise, a "Shermanesque" statement at this point would just be foolish.
Will's blindness to this point serves primarily to detract from Gore's message by casting doubt on the sincerity of the messenger. Whatever one thinks of Gore and whatever one's position on catastrophic climate change, an experienced political observer like Will surely understands that Gore's movie and recent public appearances have served to boost his credibility. We are witnessing one of the great image rehabilitations of the modern era, which makes it one of the great image rehabilitations ever. Central to Gore's rather spectacular re-entry into the public arena has been his ability to convey a sense of sincerity. Indeed, Will recognizes and attempts to diminish this aspect of Gore's new public persona, describing him as "painfully sincere."
Will creates a false dichotomy, i.e., either Gore really IS sincere, in which case he must run for President, or Gore will decide to stay out of the race, thereby proving his insincerity and creating a reason (an excuse, really) not to take him seriously.
Fortunately, Gore shows no signs of accepting such a facile analysis. He very obviously loves the freedom he enjoys as a non-candidate. He also is very aware of the opportunities to influence the planet that election to the Presidency would provide. He doesn't need George Will to tell him how to weigh the trade-offs.
Interestingly, Will quite correctly calls attention to a "silly" dichotomy that Gore has adopted to explain his decision to refrain from another run at the Presidency (at least for now), namely that catastrophic climate is "not a political issue. It is a moral issue." Even if there were somehow an issue that fell neatly into one box or other, moral issues have political solutions. As far as this point is concerned, Gore's articulation of the issue lacks intellectual honesty.
But it is worth noting that, if I'm right about Gore's mindset as he decides whether to run for president, this "silly dichotomy" allows Gore to present a shorthand explanation of how this particular issue differs from other political issues. I interpret Gore to mean something like this: "The moral component of this political issue strikes me as so important that I choose to try to minimize the impact my personal political ambitions might have on my decision of the best course for me to take at this particular moment."
Perhaps ascribing such thoughts to Gore stretches one's ability to suspend disbelief. Perhaps we need to acknowledge that his approach does leave Gore significant wiggle room when it comes to making a final decision on whether to run. But at the very least, this interpretation demonstrates that Gore's refusal to jump into the race for the Presidency is consistent with sincerity and that, notwithstanding Will's attempt to limit his options, failure to enter the race emphatically does not discredit Gore's sincerity.
From my angle, therefore, Gore's "silly dichotomy" has a lot more going for it than the silly dichotomy ("sincere candidate" v. "insincere non-candidate") that Will attempts to force upon him.
Will ends with a flourish. He writes:
Nevertheless, the likelihood that Gore will seek the presidency is suggested not only by the logic of what he says, but also by what he does not say. Given how clear and present he says the danger is, he should be more specific and radical regarding the economic, indeed civilizational changes he considers necessary. He should be -- unless he is trimming his sails and biding his time in the hope that he can acquire the presidential pulpit from which to move the nation.
There is nothing wrong with that. The nobility of politics, when it is noble, often consists in prudent maneuvering and persuading until an issue is, in terms of public opinion, ripe. A luminous example of the nobility of indirection is Lincoln's protracted and incremental progress toward abolishing slavery. Dismayed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and then the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln did not exclaim: "That does it! Instead of running for president, I am going to prepare a PowerPoint presentation.''
It's a clever analogy. It has virtually no relevance to the decision Gore must now make about whether to run for President under the very different circumstances of the 21st century. But it's damned clever.