Al Gore: A User’s Manual
by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey Sinclair
(Verso Books)
If you are voting for Gore because you think he’s got to be better than Bush on the environment, you owe it to yourself (and the rest of us) to read the book Al Gore: A User’s Manual. Seriously. And it’s not a long read–you could read it in a day.
Cockburn and Sinclair make a convincing case that Gore has used his reputation as a tree hugger to co-opt the environmental movement and wring concessions from the left that no Republican administration could have, all for the benefit of big business donors/bribers.
It was Senator Gore who pressed for the creation of the “God Squad” as a way to bypass the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. As vice president, Gore used his political capital to gut the dolphin-safe tuna program. And it was the Clinton administration, with Gore at the helm, who came up with the now infamous NW Forest Plan. All examples of Gore’s efforts to reverse environmental victories were won under Republican administrations.
Cockburn and Sinclair are at their best when they stick to matters of public record–such as things Gore has said, and legislation he has supported. Where they falter is in keeping a handle on their personal feelings. In many ways, the fact that they are clearly appalled, angry, and frustrated is a strength of the book. Their emotionality is a pleasure in apolitical culture dominated by oh-so-cool notes from the in crowd. But one can’t shake the feeling that a lot of their charges against Gore are motivated by strong feelings of personal antipathy and are either conjecture or brazen bias.
Why clutter up good information–very good information–with speculation about how Gore makes Tipper feel when he spends so much time in Washington? Why offer silly stories implying conspiracy when all the facts can really hold is that the administration supports Israel and promotes US companies abroad?
Cockburn and Sinclair would have been better served by footnoting their work and providing additional sources for material. As I read, I found myself constantly writing “Fact?” in the margins. I had no way of evaluating the authors’ claims, and their assertions gave me the uneasy feeling they didn’t trust me to come to the same conclusions as they did. Still, enough of what they said fell into matters of public record to make me less sanguine in my righteousness toward those Nader nuts who are going to ruin everything by handing over the White House to that yahoo.