Al Gore

But as Al Gore says, if denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, despair ain’t just a tire in the trunk. Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. is a former Senator and Representative from Tennessee who served as Vice President under Bill Clinton (1993–2001). He is a prominent liberal boogeyman. The excuses for this boil down to:


 * People think he claimed he invented the Internet.
 * Conservatives treat him as the Final Boss of global warming. If they beat him then they win the debate forever.
 * He's an old white man with a "D" next to his name, which obviously stands for Douche. An "R" would mean Righteous!

In the 2000 presidential election, he won the popular vote but lost the judicial electoral vote to George W. Bush, forcing his retirement. His daughter was a writer for Futurama, and Al voiced himself in 5 episodes.

Inconvenient truths
It's hysterical watching conservatives lose their shit over Gore having an air-conditioned house. This is not to say Gore doesn't have dirty laundry:


 * In 1993 he debated H. Ross Perot over NAFTA, and took the pro-NAFTA side.
 * His wife Tipper was responsible for "Parental Advisory" sticker and clean edits (But I do know one thing though, chickens, they come they go) for albums.
 * (Related to above) He worked with Strom Thurmond to try to introduce a blank tape tax to "combat piracy"; Thurmond's wife was also part of the PMRC, leading some to wonder if the PMRC was a distraction. Of course, taxing blank tapes would have the "unintended" side effect of effectively preventing new "indie" artists from releasing their own albums, and reduce the chance of any new record company forming. It failed thanks to the efforts of Frank Zappa and other superior deities that walk amongst us.
 * His running mate in 2000 was Joe Lieberman.
 * Fred Phelps housed campaign workers for Gore's 1988 Presidential run. Fred Phelps Jr. hosted a fundraiser for his Senate campaign. Phelps naturally turned against him later.
 * He put a lot of people off Thai massages. Also, he was rumored to be banging Larry David's wife, though nothing was proven (what'd you expect from the Daily Mail?).
 * He was a tobacco farmer, landlord, and chief lobbyist in Congress - until the Clintons went on an anti-tobacco jihad when he finally became an anti-smoking nazi.
 * He spent years warning about global warming and his solution was... carbon credits. Also, he has a lot of stuff in his office that has a carbon footprint. Yes, we must shun him until he moves into the woods to live solely on pine cones and earthworms. Only then can we take him seriously.

Bush v. Gore
Despite all the hoo-hah, the fact remains that in the 2000 presidential election, he lost his home state of Tennessee. Had he won that state, the result of the election in Florida would not have mattered. His poor campaigning also lost him relatively easy states such as New Hampshire. Additionally, both his home state of Tennessee and Clinton's state of Arkansas had gone to the Democrats in 1992 and 1996. This may have been because he tried to distance himself from the popular incumbent President Clinton after the President's impeachment. Any of those states would have changed the outcome of the election.

Gore's defeat in the 2000 election, despite popular vote victory and apparent victory in Florida, which a recount would have disclosed, was a result of a Republican strategy taking advantage of possibly the dumbest trial judge in the State of Florida who consistently delayed ordering a recount of the multiple defective Florida election results. Tom Delay paid for busloads of Republican operatives to engage in a near riot outside of the locked room where votes were being counted. When the sharpest lawyers money could buy finagled Gore v. Harris all the way to the US Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia led the Court into one of its most ignominious rulings in history, which was basically that since so much time had elapsed (due to Republican dilatory tactics) there would have been too much of a rush to count the votes, so they would not be counted.

His failure to capitalize on the Clinton momentum and defeat Bush is rightly seen as an embarrassment, both for him and the party. On the other hand, those coattails had some nasty white stains on them, and obviously it was bad luck that it all came down to Bush's brother's backyard and a conservative-tilted Supreme Court. Too bad we'll never know the details of the fight Gore and Clinton had afterward. Supposedly it was pretty epic.

Publications
He is also known for his books and documentaries on politics and the environment:


 * Earth in the Balance (book)


 * An Inconvenient Truth (Academy Award-winning love letter to himself film)


 * Assault on Reason (book)

Inventions and influence
Al Gore created the Internet in 4004 B.C. worked hard in the Senate on policy initiatives that eventually led to the Internet as we know it. Some may not like it, but it happened. Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, the two men who, as much as anyone, can claim to have invented the Internet, say Gore deserves the credit he claimed.

Gore also invented global warming in conjunction with George Soros claimed to be one of the inspirations behind Oliver Barrett IV, the hero of the romantic novel (and movie) Love Story.

Business connections
Gore has also been a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. and a co-founder of the Emmy-winning cable channel Current TV, which specialized in independently produced short-subject documentary films.

Personal energy use
The conservative think tank, National Center for Public Policy Research, obtained the electricity billing data for Al Gore's home in Nashville, Tennessee. They then compared the annual consumption and peak month consumption against national average household data from DOE's Energy Information Administration. The average monthly residential use in Tennessee is 1,248 kwh, or 14,976 kwh per year, but the report used the nation-wide 901 kwh per month figure. So, instead of saying that Al Gore used on average 15 times more electricity than the average Tennessee residence each year, the data was distorted by Breitbart as saying its peak month use was equal to 34 months of national-average month use and by the Washington Times as being 21 times the national average annual use. Neither article mentioned that Gore had invested $250,000 in energy conservation in his home by adding improved insulation, a geothermal system, solar panels, and converting his house to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Gore also contributes to Green Power Switch, which earmarks his electric use to renewable sources and does not use natural gas, a fossil fuel. Conservapedia was quick to add a distorted account of Gore's energy use.

Awards
Gore was a co-winner, along with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his exposure of the causes and consequences of global warming.

Along with a Nobel Prize and Emmy, Gore has won many other awards.

Military service
Unlike many sabre-rattling chickenhawks, Gore declined a position in the National Guard and volunteered to go to Vietnam. "He said that if he found a fancy way of not going, someone else would have to go in his place," recalled his former housemate, actor Tommy Lee Jones. His father was at the time engaged in 1970 Senate election campaign, with Gore claiming that his failure to enlist would have adversely affected his father's campaign.

He didn't see much fighting, but at least he wasn't hiding in the Texas Air National Guard or spending the duration of the war dealing with an anal cyst or shitting himself for a deferment or got out due to alleged bone spurs.

Lampoonin'
Al Gore has been lampooned in various forms of American media for his seemingly textbook liberal agenda. In 2006 he was parodied in an episode of South Park in which he insists on informing the residents of the town about the existence of a "half man, half bear, and half pig." Throughout the episode, attempts by some characters to escape from Al Gore or to remove him from the proceedings end with another character defending him, saying "No, I feel kinda bad for him. I don't think he has any friends." The episode ends with Al Gore attaching a cape to himself and pretending to fly off. However, in a 2018 episode, it is revealed that the “ManBearPig” does exist and the characters apologize to Gore.

One in every family
Al is a distant cousin of Gore Vidal, a fact neither liked to acknowledge.