Just do your thing, you'll be king

The only time politics ever made me cry was on December 13, 2000. I have lost a lot, and I mean, a lot, of elections in the 5 and a half years since that day. I've watched heroic candidates lose, heroic candidates die, and in 2004 watched Bill Clinton and Barack Obama remind me that oratory can still shake me to my core. But on December 13, 2000, politics made me cry for the first and only time.


On Friday night, I went to quite possibly the most appropriate place to watch Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the Church Street theatre in Harvard Square in Cambridge. The moviegoers were straight out of central casting; the 60 year old men with earrings and hawaiin shirts, the nerds with Harvard sweatshirts and black rimmed glasses laughing like Eddie Murphy, the braless 45 year old women wearing tank tops and long flowery dresses. President Bush's image was flashed on the screen, and several hisses and boos scattered throughout the crowd. This was the Democratic base.

There was applause, there was voracious nodding and agreement, and there was laughter. Not just at the jokes, but at Al Gore. At his exasperation, at his demeanor, at Al Gore, the man. Here was this man on a quest to deliver a message. Here was this man who was so angry at the lack of government and societal action and behavior, here was this man. Not a wonk, not a Vice President who overpronounced words and looked too stiff next to George Bush. Here was a man who is just as committed to saving the environment in 2006 as he was when he first learned about the alarming trends in 1966.


The movie doesn't really break a lot of new ground (main plot point: we are fucked), but it does do two important things. First, it simplifies some myths about "global warming" and also talks, in real terms, about the specific changes in our environment as well as the false choice of environment vs. economy. Second, it goes a long way in continuing to humanize a man who was painted during an entire Presidential campaign as an android. And that's the real result of this movie; realization of a soul where there was none. A rehabililation of a public image.

On December 13, 2000, politics made me cry for the only time. Al Gore conceded his campaign for the Presidency. He fought the good fight for that last month, and in that speech, he showed glimpses of what we would see from him over the next six years. Hints of the humor of his appearance on Saturday Night Live two years later, of the fire and energy of his speeches against the war in Iraq and the Bush foreign policy, of the soul of An Inconvenient Truth. It's a cliche, but where was all of this when he was running against George Bush?

The answer to that question is: it doesn't matter. He lost that race. He made his mistakes and sighed his way through the debates. He ran from Clinton. He was afraid to take a position. But that Al Gore doesn't exist anymore. It's the same face, sure. The same voice, the same ideology. The same commitment. But this Al Gore, either out of enlightment or political calculation, isn't afraid anymore. And he has his next campaign video, which will be out on DVD just in time to deliver to every democratic voter in Iowa.