Why the Gores split

As soon as I read about the historically unprecedented dissolution of the marriage of a former U.S. vice president and near-president, I had the same thought that many commenters at Lucianne.com expressed: that Tipper Gore, being relatively normal, had grown tired of her husband’s increasing insanity and megalomania. What else could explain the shocking end of a marriage that had always seemed solid and happy?

That thought was fortified when I saw this recent photo of the Gores,

in which said qualities of megalomania are (at least to me) evident in Mr. Gore’s face, and Mrs. Gore looks as though she is just enduring him.

But of course this is speculation. We have no knowledge of why they are splitting.

But then I read at Newsbusters that Claire Shipman of ABC had offered this explanation for the end of the Gores’ marriage:

“The Gores have told friends they’ve simply grown apart. Tipper embracing the perks of a post-political life like grandchildren and travel. The former Vice President relishing his role as an award-winning environmental activist and not eager to slow down.”

Now this statement, passed on by friends of the Gores, is obviously polite code for something else. Wives of career national politicians don’t suddenly grow terminally weary of their husbands’ being politicians, not to mention after 40 years of marriage. The mere fact that her busband is an activist is simply not a credible reason for Tipper to want to end their marriage. Therefore it is not his activism, but something about the nature of his activism that has driven them apart. Further, it cannot be the fact that he is active for environmentalism, a cause that she presumably shares with him. So, if it’s not the substantive cause he advances that bothers her, it must be the way he advances it. Which brings us again to the view—which I present only as a reasonable guess—that Tipper became alienated from her husband as a result of his intolerable mania.

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James N. writes:

C’mon! You’re supposed to be a traditionalist!

Cherchez la femme!

LA replies:

Possible. In which case the information from the Gores’ friends, “The former Vice President relishing his role as an award-winning environmental activist and not eager to slow down,” can be seen as code for a more particular type of relishing and desire not to slow down.

LA continues:

But politicians’ wives have endured their husbands’ infidelities since time immemorial. Is it credible that the Gores would terminate their 40 year marriage over an affair?

Jim C. writes:

The creators of South Park would agree with your assessment of Gore’s megalomania. Visit Youtube and type in “Manbearpig”—best satire of Gore I’ve seen.

Laura Wood writes:

That’s a good theory. He must be unbearable to live with. The hyper-adulation of him, which is out of all proportion to his real worth, may have caused inflation of his ego to the point of insanity.

Richard W. writes:

What struck me about the picture was the dichotomy between how the two of them are dressed. Recall that during Gore’s campaign they were always matched. Mostly in a pleasant yuppie “dockers and button-down” sort of way. This is typical of couples, that they dress in harmony with their style cues.

Now look at this picture. Gore has adopted the hipster old-guy look that is so popular with aging Hollywood types. I’m not sure who started it, perhaps Al Pacino. Black expensive suit coat, possibly in silk. Black dress shirt, and note, even black buttons.

He has left behind the world of dockers and button down shirts. He is no longer dresses himself like the everyman successful suburban guy taking the kids to piano lessons. Now his clothes perfectly express the arrogance of fame and wealth combined with the longing for youth and coolness that epitomizes Hollywood. Despite obviously having $1,000 worth of clothes on, he is underdressed for any serious meeting. That’s really the point.

Tipper, meanwhile, looks just like she did on the campaign trail. A nice but very ordinary overcoat and scarf. (Hippies are never cold!) A large and useful but somewhat homely purse.

I predict within a few months we will see Al with some bimbo eye-candy on his arm. That’s obviously the accessory he needs to hang out with Bono, Robert De Niro, and other successful types of this genre

I have no doubt they have “grown apart”. Their wardrobes show it.

Al Pacino, originator of “the look”, doing it much better than Albert Gore.

Micky Rourke.

Bono.

Robert DiNiro.

James P. writes:

Bush caused the Gore divorce!

As a commenter said,

GW BUSH——THE MOST POWERFUL PRESIDENT EVER!! The “First Cause” as defined by the MSM and the Democratic Party. Responsible for Everything/Blamed for Everything.

Is he also responsible for Adam and Eve and the Snake in the Garden of Eden too? I’ll bet Katie sees his fingerprints ALL OVER that caper.

* * *

Laura Wood at The Thinking Housewife has a highly original and perceptive explanation of the Gore split-up:

IS THE ANNOUNCED separation of Al and Tipper Gore simply a case of a husband and wife who have drifted apart and have decided mutually and amicably to go their separate ways? This is very unlikely.

At their advanced ages and after forty years of marriage, this picture of a mild and mutual parting does not make sense. More likely, this is a case of deep-seated anger or disappointment. Dissolving a longstanding marriage requires will and determination. The very essence of divorce, its romantic appeal to a generation of radical individualists, is in the will. A whole way of living and network of connections must be reordered. The life story is redefined, which may be especially thrilling on the brink of old age. It requires intense anger, bitter disillusionment, acute meaninglessness or some inner revolt against nature itself to motivate an individual to pursue this course when there is so little to gain and they face old age without a spouse.

Mark Leibovich of the New York Times interviewed friends of the family. He writes,

This decision, they said, was simply about a couple that had grown apart after four decades.

“I know people are feeling surprised, but there’s just not a lot of drama behind this,” said a close friend and adviser to the family who declined to be identified in deference to the Gores’ wish for privacy. “They remain very close friends.”

Don’t believe it. There is indeed a lot of drama behind this. If this appraisal of the marriage were true, if they were still very close friends, then they would continue to remain married while living essentially separate lives that get around their differences. Friends don’t mind being together. The Gores are wealthy enough to live full and active parallel lives. Instead, they have chosen a public act of destruction, a very un-friendly course. They have decided to say to their children, their grandchildren and the whole world that, despite all their statements to the contrary and all they have lived through together, “We can’t stand each other.”

But let’s say for the sake of argument that this is indeed an act of friendliness. Then it strangely proves that the Gores are narcissisticly absorbed in their marital friendship, to the exclusion of others. Their separation is unfriendly toward others, toward their children, relatives and friends, even to the nation at large, which sees them as a symbol of marital harmony and relies on their stability (yes, even liberals like marital stability in their celebrities.) Any way you cut it, their break up is an act of aggression. It is in their interest to sugarcoat it, to present it as something that just, well, happened rather than as a triumph of will over circumstance, community and vows.

* * *

LA writes:

One question I have about Laura’s theory is, if this were an act of aggression against marriage, against people’s expectations, against society, against the order of the universe, why would the Gores want to sugarcoat it and present it as a meaningless event? Isn’t it the nature of aggression … to be aggressive? I guess what Laura is saying is that it is an act of aggression, and it is intended to have the unsettling and destructive effect of such an act of aggression, but the aggression cannot be explicitly admitted as such because that would be too damaging to the Gores.

Laura Wood replies:

I guess you could say all acts of destruction are not necessarily acts of aggression. So I should have said, “Any way you cut it, their break up is act of destruction,” which also flies in the face of their effort to betray this as an event without victims or discord.

Randy B.writes:

I don’t challenge your specific suggestion that Tipper is relatively normal, but wonder how a normal person would have endured Al Gore in the least. His Global Cooling insanity started way back in the ’70s, and they were married through that mental embarrassment. Maybe their relationship is akin to the Frog in the Pot analogy? That of course would assume that she, being relatively normal, would have accepted Gore as a version of normal at the point of engagement, or that he was a tolerable version of evil, and not unlike all liberals took him up as a quest to manipulate into conformity.

If society were not so far gone, I would have expected this to at least flatten one of the four tires that allow Gore to continue forward motion. Base only upon the media reaction, it seems to be that Gore gains momentum from being on a tricycle.

Gintas writes:

You wrote:

One question I have about Laura’s theory is, if this were an act of aggression against marriage, against people’s expectations, against society, against the order of the universe, why would the Gores want to sugarcoat it and present it as a meaningless event? Isn’t it the nature of aggression … to be aggressive? I guess what Laura is saying is that it is an act of aggression, and it is intended to have the unsettling and destructive effect of such an act of aggression, but the aggression cannot be explicitly admitted as such because that would be too damaging to the Gores.

Liberalism is passive-aggressive to the extreme. It destroys with a smiling face. It rules viciously while pretending not to rule at all. It scours the landscape clean of all good, all for your own good. Liberals hate goodness, truth, and beauty, but want to think of themselves as the epitome of goodness, truth, and beauty

Paul K. writes:

You wrote, “Which brings us again to the view—which I present only as a reasonable guess—that Tipper became alienated from her husband as a result of his intolerable mania.”

I tend to agree. I suspect Al has become increasingly difficult to live with since the revelation that distorted and falsified data has been used to prop up the theory of AGW. His anger must be ever escalating as he sees his life’s work subjected to ridicule and increased public skepticism. An article recently published by Gallup, “Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop,” says that 48 percent of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated.

At the end of February 2010, you wrote about the 2,000-word op-ed piece Gore published in the New York Times reasserting his beliefs. That article was striking for its stridency; to me it seemed to seethe with rage.

I can only imagine what home life must be like for Tipper, whom I take to be a fairly normal person. She has to listen to this stuff day in and day out. I can imagine her pleading, “Al, if you don’t find some way to let go of your anger, to leave it at the office, I can’t stay in this marriage.”

And that was it. Al chose the political arena, in which his mania still brings him admiration and rewards.

T. Craig writes:

Al Gore used to be a handsome man, but it appears as if he has undergone a Dorian Gray type of transformation. Thanks to Botox, his outside now looks as slick and artificial as his inside.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 02, 2010 09:30 AM | Send