Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it.
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden Or, Life In The Woods
In a recent interview, former Vice President Al Gore reiterated that he has no intention to run for president. In a way, I don't blame him. At this stage in history, running for the presidency as the successor to George W. Bush is not unlike willingly applying to be Rush Limbaugh's lone detox custodian. Big, big stinky messes to clean up. Nevertheless, Al Gore is absolutely the right man at the right time to "save the universe from annihilation."
Back in the early '90s, after Jay Leno had been hosting The Tonight Show for a year or two, NBC made an offer to David Letterman to take over the show after Leno's contract expired. It's all famously documented in Bill Carter's book The Late Shift.
NBC offered, but thankfully Peter Lassally, the former Tonight Show producer and Letterman's consigliere at that time, stepped in and recommended that Letterman pass. The reason? It wasn't Johnny's Tonight Show anymore. That golden age had passed and someone else had made the show his own. Letterman, it seems, wouldn't have inherited Johnny's Tonight Show, but, instead, Jay Leno's Tonight Show: a vanishing shadow of its former prestige.
Similarly, the presidency Al Gore would inherit isn't the one to which he would've ascended in 2001; the 2009 presidency will be wrought with chaos. I have to hand it to the present field of candidates for their Herculean level of fortitude and their near-suicidal degree of masochism in wanting to dedicate their lives to cleaning up President Bush's erupting dunghill of malfeasance. Whoever wins qualifies as a subject for that Dirty Jobs show on Discovery Channel, with a permanent spot between the rat puckers and septic sludge divers.
It's comforting to think about President Al Gore stepping in and taking bold steps to resolve the greatest issue of our time: the climate crisis. But with the Iraq occupation clearly not going anywhere in the next two years and an array of other top shelf issues reaching critical mass -- issues ranging from the national debt, to health care, to re-establishing our pre-Bush liberties, to curbing free trade, to the insanely daunting task of reuniting America with its formerly enthusiastic allies -- President Al Gore would be forced to spend much of his term (or terms) in office simply cleaning up the mess President Bush left behind.
As I like to point out whenever practical, the last seven years have been a disgusting kind of nightmare -- an alternate reality that should never have taken place thanks to the subversive manipulation of the president's Legion of Doom; manipulation being President Bush's only successful legacy.
Since the beginning of this tangential timeline in which Biff Tannen pilfered his way to becoming the phony redneck monarch of Hill Valley, a plate was set for the next president in which no single issue would ever really take priority -- however meaningful. Even Biff himself is powerless do anything about his other pet issues, like destroying Social Security and guarding his precious Sports Almanac, all due to the truckload of shit he willingly fishtailed into. In 2008, Al Gore has another chance to correct our national course and make the future right.
The catch, though, is that President Al Gore would have to dig out before anything positive could be done on the climate crisis. Conversely, as Private Citizen Al Gore, he can move forward unhindered on this issue while, say, President Hillary Clinton or President Obama or President Brownback (try not to scream) did all of the heavy shoveling that is guaranteed in the presidential job description of 2009.
All of that said, we need a president who will make the climate crisis his or her number one priority.
The time is now for this person and, no offense to the other Democratic candidates, that person is naturally Al Gore. He has the charisma, sense of urgency, the knowledge and the plan to take it on while everyone else, sadly, really doesn't seem to give a rip even though the climate crisis will affect every aspect of human life and, as I've written before, is much more crucial to our collective survival than Iraq or health care or immigration. The presidency offers the opportunity to make this an economic and legislative priority -- far more so than any rock concert. (20 years after Live Aid, equatorial Africa remains a death zone of starvation, disease, war and genocide. But if this concert happens, can I make two most excellent requests? Rush (the band) and The Flaming Lips. Thank you.)
Al Gore, as president more so than concert organizer, could rapidly inaugurate a new industrial revolution in green energy that would make the dot-com expansion (which he helped to stimulate, by the way) seem comparatively insignificant. The American economy could be granted the opportunity to reestablish itself as a powerful innovator on the vanguard of amazing new technologies and millions of new jobs, as opposed to its present status as a bloated and lonely Boss Hogg character fanning his sopping pit stains with a poker hand of overdrafted credit cards -- belching orders to overseas peasants who are paid slave wages for hauling his feeding trough of high fructose corn syrup.
Republicans will benefit from this new industrial revolution of green technologies just as much as Democrats. And we'll reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil at the same time. Everyone wins, except ExxonMobil, unless they shift their business model starting now. Contrary to the Big Oil sponsored talking points, a green technology economic boom will be a cash cow for America while we ensure our climate for future generations. Seriously, who can argue with that? Even if the science were only half right, wouldn't it make sense to seize the opportunity while it's young?
So rather than preempting the crisis, it's entirely likely that America's posture for the next decade (plus) will be a reactive one in which our future presidents will either take baby steps when its politically safe or they'll feebly react one-by-one to the inevitable syllabus of climate disasters waiting on deck. Looking at the thickening mass of Democratic candidates at this early stage, no-one else seems to be talking about global warming with any sort of conviction -- if at all. It'll have its day to be sure. After it's too late.
Al Gore was made -- designed -- for this time in human history to confront this issue from the world's largest stage with the world's largest slide show. History shows us that this kind of convergence between leaders and issues is rare, but when the planets align and it actually happens, its results are spectacular. Jefferson and the Revolution. Lincoln and the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt and the labor movement. FDR and World War II. Contrast that with President Bush who was absolutely the wrong leader for this era by any standard or measure. His bloody roster of bungling failures are proof.
Sure it's a dirty job, but for Gore to withhold his voice from the race would be to forgo what appears to be his era of convergence. His time. And for us, without Gore leading the free world, we face the potential for a continued path of ignorance -- a dark ride through an alternate reality in which global warming and the survival of humanity as we know it is allowed to slip beyond the zero barrier.