I'm trying to figure out why I can't stop thinking about the speech Al Gore gave today in Washington. And I think I know why. We are starving for leaders who are unafraid. Who speak without equivocation. Who say the things that Democrats should have been saying all along but were too mousy to vocalize.
God damn it, we are looking for a leader! Someone to lead us out of the wilderness. And today Al Gore sounded the bell. A call to arms that hit a nerve. It's time to get them back. It's time to be unafraid. It's time to take on these right wing zealots and push back harder than they expect.
Fox News Channel and their mindless clones at CNN and MSNBC will now try to paint Al Gore as out of control and a fringe player. This is the same playbook they used against Howard Dean. If anyone aggressively questions this extremist administration, the conservative talk show hosts and their minions at the cable news outlets claim they are the ones that are extreme.
The media have fallen for it hook, line and sinker every time so far. Part of fighting harder is calling them out on it. If the media try to do this again - put them in their place.
Less than five million people watch CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC combined (on a daily basis, if you give them credit for their top shows, count MSNBC's eighteen viewers and throw in an extra couple of hundred thousand people).
Over 50 million people voted for Al Gore to be the President of the United States of America. All those Americans trusted their lives with Al Gore. He was their Vice President in an immensely popular administration. So tread carefully, you pompous pricks on cable. You're talking to a man who represents a majority of the American people.
More people voted for Al Gore than George W. Bush in this country. So, before you spit in all their eyes, you better slow down. Before you smugly try to mock our leader, think about all the Americans you will be disregarding. If the mainstream media keep dismissing us, there will come a day when we dismiss them.
The media is so careful not to offend the crazy religious right. How about us? How about the over 50 million people who have voted for a Democrat in the last two presidential elections? Somehow the media think it is okay to marginalize ALL OF US.
It's time to let them know, it is decidedly not okay.
After watching this speech today, I have an idea of who might be able to carry that message. A man who already won the presidency once - and can do it again.
I nominate the president to finally become president. We have heard Al Gore today, and I hope he now hears us. We need a leader. Someone who will help us find "a new way beyond the darkness" and bring us home to an America we recognize. Someone who can start that job now and finish it in 2008.