Gore, in Arabia, denounces America’s “terrible abuses” of Arabs

A question for conservatives: Is it a fact worthy of mention that a former U.S. vice president and winner of the popular vote for the presidency has become an anti-American nutcase who travels to foreign countries to denounce America? Or is it merely part of the ubiquitous leftist madness, the background noise of our age, and therefore to be ignored while we focus on more important and useful matters? While I feel the pull of the latter position, I cannot wholly disregard the amazing spectacle of Al Gore’s speech in Saudi Arabia:

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia—Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed “terrible abuses” against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up” and held in “unforgivable” conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida’s hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.

“The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake,” Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. “The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States.”

Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable.”

“Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it’s wrong,” Gore said. “I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country.”

One must wonder, did Gore become a quasi-traitor out of his unbearable frustration at not becoming president? Or was he like this all along, and would have been like this even if he had been elected?

(Michelle Malkin has more on Gore.)

A reader offers this:

You write: “One must wonder, did Gore become a quasi-traitor out of his unbearable frustration at not becoming president? Or was he like this all along, and would have been like this even if he had been elected?”

You’re correct on both counts, Gore having a severe case of Jimmy Carter rejectionitis and also having been an idiot all along. He is an absolute moron who suffers the delusion that he possesses such profound wisdom that he must always talk down to people. Every time I’ve seen him speak he has addressed the audience as if they were first graders. If he had not been steered into politics by his daddy he would have become a psychologist in order to better understand why everyone else is so screwed up and on a different wavelength.

The notion of Gore as a psychologist is hilarious. However, given my own insights into Gore’s psyche, centering on the absolute imperative, governing his entire being, that he become president, and his total derangement resulting from his failure to do so, it seems possible to me that if he had been elected, the fulfillment of that driving imperative would have calmed him down, bringing out the more rational and responsible, even witty and self-deprecating, Gore that has been seen from time to time. I’m not saying this would have made him a good president; and I think it likely that if he had been president in September 2001 the Northern Alliance would still be hung up somewhere in Northern Afghanistan to this day; all I’m saying is that I think he became substantially more crazy as a result of not being elected.

A reader sent me a comment at Lucianne.com about Gore and his psychology:

Reply 19—Posted by: Bedford, 2/14/2006 8:32:14 AM

He is the son of the late near-idol, Senator Gore of Tennessee.

Al was groomed from birth and prepared to be POTUS, pampered as a King Apparent. Along the way, Al internalized it and it became a elemental part of him.

When Al lost the election on his way to the coronation, especially when he won the popular vote and lost to the Electoral College, Plan A for the rest of his life evaporated. And he had no Plan B. What happens if you DON’T become POTUS was never considered by Al or his handlers.

Al has been lost, totally lost, searching for a cause, for meaning, for some kind of point to it all. In the drifting, he has run off the rails.

Visions of greatness imposed upon an very ordinary man were to heavy to bear, and to lose.

It is the stuff of tragedy. But even more tragic, he evokes no sympathy at all, but only disgust and revulsion.

I replied:

Agreed. I thought a lot about this, when observing him in 2000, his total need to become president which made him act in obsessive, over the top ways, like a shark on methamphetamine. The idea of his being wooden is a thoughtless cliché that doesn’t fit reality. He was the most energetic campaigner for president in my lifetime. The Bush-Gore debates were fascinating psychodramas, in which, in three debates, Gore became three different people. It’s beyond me how anyone could say that Gore is boring.

The sad irony is, if he had not had that crazed total need to become president, he would have been more relaxed and normal, and he would have won.

Remember his sneaking up behind Bush in the debate? Remember him standing close to and addressing the studio audience, and they recoiled? Then Bush did the same, and they relaxed?

The reader replied:

“The sad irony is, if he had not had that crazed total need to become president, he would have been more relaxed and normal, and he would have won.”

Sadder yet, there is no normal there. When he arrived on some Iowa farm wearing earth tone clothing complete with a flannel shirt, as he had been advised to do by a woman handler, he looked like he was wearing someone else’s skin. Same with Kerry when he asked, “Can I git me a huntin’ license?” He was viewing human beings as some caricature of who they really were and not one of them missed the failed connection. They all laughed heartily and then went out and voted for Bush.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 13, 2006 06:42 PM | Send