Why Our Culture Allows Stupid People to Become Our Leaders

Eric Alterman, today:

I went to a dinner for Al Gore last night. After being introduced by his hosts, Harry Evans and Tina Brown, he fielded questions and the first one, from Charlie Rose, was the right one: “What would it take to convince you to run for President in 2008?” Gore gave a long, interesting answer in which he pointed out that the transformation of our political culture into one of short soundbites was not one in which he felt most comfortable or to which he thought he was particularly good at adapting. I fear he’s right about this. To listen to the long, thoughtful, erudite answers Gore gave to questions last night —Chris Buckley asked him about nuclear power; I asked him about the weaknesses of our political and journalistic establishments that allow the Bush administration to get away with its mendacity/extremism/incompetence for so long— is to bring oneself to tears over the contrast between this thoughtful, intelligent, articulate and well-informed would-be statesman, and the purposely ignorant ideologue whom the Supreme Court placed in the world’s most powerful office. But Gore is no good at pithy quips and tries hard to tell the truth, even when it hurts. There’s little value on that in our debased political culture, where Maureen Dowd complains about his coffee tastes, his clothes, about everything except what matters, and she’s on the Good Guys’ team. I have no question that Gore is the person best qualified in America to be president today. And I think he’d be the strongest Democratic candidate, but matching his brave new, liberated, truth-telling self with the demands of contemporary political campaigning would not be easy and may not be possible. And it’s that mismatch, I fear, that may keep him out of the race, though I feel even more certain now, he’s thinking about it.

One thing I think it’s OK to report was a longish, by these standards, talk I had before dinner with Tipper where, when I told her that the word in smart circles was that she did not want him to run again and that might stand in his way. She vehemently objected to this notion and insisted that whatever was good for Al, was good for her. She would not stand in the way of any decision he made about his political future.

Finally, if my argument is correct, that Gore is the only candidate who could unite the Moveon.org and DLC wings of the party, since he’s long had the trust of the latter and recently (and deservedly) earned the trust of the former, it’d be nice to hear some support for that idea from the Al Fromms and Will Marshalls of the party. I might be wrong about that, but if I’m not, I think it’d matter to Gore if we heard it out loud.