Odd thing to say in such a pompous manner.

Okay. He's not a woman.
Aside from that, I do wish, angry women would explain what it is about him, they dislike.
With only slight differences, Hillary and Obama are on side of the political net, and McCain is on the other.
The kind of criticisms I read on feminist blogs echo Republican talking points (as well as Hillary's, during the primaries).

>”He's vague”, even though his policies are available on his website and have been iterated in speeches and statements.

> “He's young and/or inexperienced” is almost a verbatime repetition of attacks lobbed at JFK by the Republicans. Despite Hillary's experience, her campaign strategy resulted in a loss, and that should count for something. in evaluating experience.

>Obama got too much credit for rhetoric. Why is an asset a bad thing?
Every leader, every politician, uses the talents he has for maximum effect.
Hillary became more effective as she became more comfortable with and smart about her speaking style. It worked for her,too.

>The Obama camp got nasty. That's very true, and I was revolted by the overkill myself. , However, both camps got nasty. Between the two principals, though, Hillary was the more ruthless, damaging the Dem party in the process of damaging Obama. Being ruthless is problematic in itself, but being ruthless without regard to consequences is dangerous..

Is Obama, then, faulted . for not copying Hillary's mistakes>
I honestly don't understand. What is it?

Au contraire, lots of people respect him, even admire him.
Let's not stretch personal opinions into general ones. It's silly.

I appreciate this, since I can't stand Obama — I am going to vote for him because we need a Democratic president, but I would not have been pleased if Gore had endorsed him.

As it is, Gore's endorsement, and request for contributions for Obama at his website, makes it much easier for me to put my hand into my meagerly filled pockets and transfer such spare change as I have to Obama. And — as a member of the 'Gore network' — I can assure you that Gore has many, many supporters who will be swayed by his endorsement.

Despite all the cries to the contrary, the Dems had a rousing nomination process, capturing the news spotlight for months after the Republicans settled on their lesser-of-all-evils candidate. McCain has nothing but loss ahead of him now.

The other possibility, which applies to Gore, Edwards and others, is that they may want a position in the new administration. Endorsing before the candidate is chosen reduces their chances of being considered by one of the two hopefuls.

I view the timing of Al Gore’s endorsement as a symbolic act. It also may suggest to voters that he is not so much interested in the particular person of the candidate but rather the bigger picture of the party’s political message. He may have been trying to demonstrate his own acknowledged place within the party, as a party member, of ultimately lesser importance, within the contextual scheme of things, than the running leader. I think it is precisely because of his ‘weight’ that he decided to stay ‘out of the fight’ because it would perhaps become the focus of media attention which would just serve to ‘oust’ the real issues at hand and no longer allow the real leaders and the real issues that concern them to emerge in the run-ups. I think this was fair and considerate of him to be honest. To me, he respectfully allowed the ‘debate’ between Obama and Clinton to emerge along the lines of the ‘truth’ of the issues of the discussion.

I really respect Lieberman, truly, I admire him (as I do Obama, McCain, Clinton, Edwards….ad infinitum) but it should not be necessary to have to compare him to Gore, they are two different people, with two different ways of being, and with two different approaches to demonstrating their loyalty and/or courage. To speculate by comparison of their personal character is a loss of focus and direction within the dynamic of political debate. The point of debate should not be a continuous focus about the person’s character, but an exploration of the truth they speak in advocating their leadership quality, which is sometimes necessarily ‘inconvenient’.

Anything new worth learning is actually, from my perspective, always inconvenient because it requires a rearranging of the parameters of your knowledge-life-experience which constructs your reality. No one likes change because it requires much effort and is not exactly easy! I think Gore respects this; voters need time to digest the topics of the debate between Obama and Clinton, allow the story-line to play out (so to speak), consider them carefully, and then decide how to proceed for the sake of the ideals they hold dear to their particular reality.

It seems to me that Gore supports democracy as a living-breathing-concept. I think he respects the dynamic of the democratic process as a serious consideration of truth as opposed to a celebrity endorsement campaign: and he shows this by withdrawing from the limelight of the election debate so that it may indeed function on a basis of equality. I think he realises the importance of election debate. The issues brought to the foreground will ultimately change the lives of all members of the (world-wide) population. I add world-wide to this because it will greatly influence and affect foreign policy, and the US is a world-leader or player. This is not just important for Americans but also the rest of the world of ‘the global market economy’.

The general consensus among Europeans during the last eight years has been an experience of total devastation of having to go and follow (by the armed force of our families and friends and loved ones as well as being subjected to continuous coverage live from the battle scenes on television everyday in our homes) Bush and Blair in ‘their’ war, which we ardently opposed as a collective union of nations, forcefully, but to of no avail – this devastation has had long lasting after-effects on all aspects of our lives – economic, political, soulful.

To my eyes, Gore recognises this, nationally and globally as a sort of symbiotic ideological unity, and therefore his endorsement is not half-hearted at all but serious and meaningful, precisely because it is a serious decision that has to be made by each American individual voter, which as his timing demonstrates should not be ‘personal’, or a form of attack, but a considered responsible decision.

The media may speculate about the truth of the timing of Al Gore’s endorsement but it is important to remember that Al Gore is not actually running for presidency, so perhaps the real question is whether or not this speculation is actually valuable. Shaun Mullen poignantly (and I think respectfully) asks here at TMV on a previous article concerning the legacy of Tim Russert a question of a related nature, he asks is this really journalism? I don’t know, I am not a journalist, nor do I aspire to be one. But I can relate, as a human being, to the idea behind journalism, when I try to see the truth of every ‘story’ I encounter.

To me Gore’s endorsement of Obama is an act of ideological-friendship. I would read nothing more into it as far as his character and place in the democratic party is concerned, apart from further considering what Gore’s inconvenient truth actually means: to me, to my particular life, and to our future world. I choose also to see Obama’s candidacy in a new light with the addition of Gore to his campaign. As a European, I consider this to be a very worthy addition, which would seek to constructively repair – from an ideological root upward- the damage to our collective ‘sacred land’ and the damaged souls involved in war, both present and past, ideological and physically – by repairing disunity within world politics. The issues of environment, racial, social, and sexual equality, that this particular team advocate, are also ideas that Europeans value dearly and would welcome an engagement with, on this level. But in truth, most people I know support Obama as ‘an example of a good man’, or as Donald Winnicott, the British psychoanalyst and observer of human behaviour, would say about the turbulent task of mothering, he is ‘good enough’: and that is a complement because its inherent undertone is moderate, not extreme.