In this week’s cover story, Newsweek‘s Sharon Begley seems to think Al Gore’s new book is good–but he’s still too wonky:
To anyone with bad memories of how Gore’s fact-filled debate performances against George W. Bush in 2000 failed to connect with voters, it may come as no surprise that Our Choice has a graphic on “how a wind turbine works,” and a long section that begins: “Conventional hydrothermal plants are built according to one of three different designs. The steam can be taken directly through the turbine and then recondensed….”
A wind turbine GRAPHIC! In a book about green energy!? What on Earth was he thinking.
As to our memories of those 2000 debates,maybeBegleymeant to type “reporters” instead of “voters.”As Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler has been doggedly remembering for years now, actual voters seemed to think Gore did pretty well in those debates–“instant polls of viewers credited Gore with a rather decisive win.” The media created a different narrative–one of a petulant and sighing Gore who couldn’t behave himself. And that’s the way that they want everyone else to remember it.
How well Gore did with voters is still unknown, thanks to a US Supreme Court ruling.
And, ironically, nobody even looked under the rocks in Ohio, cause I’m pretty sure that would have changed things significantly too.
What got me about Begley’s comment is that she is saying that “fact-filled debates” are bad things.
I let my 34-year Newsweek subscription lapse when they signed on Karl Rove as a guest columnist.
I let our 34-year Newsweek subscription lapse when they signed on Karl Rove as a guest columnist.
The mainstream media is an enemy of the people; along with the corporate empire, the military complex, and the Republicans. The people have the Democrat party, but it is riddled with corruption. Hmmm. Looks like a good place for a revolution.
Regina,
Time to start looking at the Greens, or register Independent, to keep them guessing?
Not to mention PUBLIC FINANCE REFORM, pushing for reform on how our elections are conducted, meaning keeping tabs on who our “representatives” represent. Thom Hartmann suggests our congress people wear NASCAR type logos sewn into their suits to show who they REALLY represent.
The German High Court recently banned electronic voting machines, and mandated hand counts of the votes. How quaint, how overdue here.
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/12343/2009-10-23.html
Most precincts in the US are small enough to be counted by hand easily and quickly. Yes, I know about Afghanistan and “ballot stuffing”, but cheating via ballot stuffing would be harder in the U.S., and much less efficient than electronic voting machines, or paper ballots fed into machines, to hack into on a large scale.
Regina,
How on Earth do the people have the democratic party? The democrats have been shoveling money into the big cities and supplying people with their own hole to jump into (welfare). How much improvement have we seen with this ‘help’? Why doesn’t welfare teach a skill or require a drug test? You are required to pass a drug test for most jobs. There is no help going on, just the intent of keeping people poor so they do not care about taxes and would enjoy more government control. Perpetuating poorness is not helping.
The democrats are attempting to push cap and trade through which would devastate our economy with minimal impact environmentally. The people will have to pay more for no reason.
The democrats push these PI ideals that got 13 soldiers killed in Fort Hood.
The democrats attempt to regulate business (whom we’ve stupidly bailed out) with the long history of regulations failing; such as the regulation of AIG salaries.
Regards,
Z