GOP afraid of... Gore?

I've noticed something very curious this past week. Right-wing hatchet men, including the notorious Drudge Report and other so-called news outlets have been dogpiling on Al Gore in the wake of An Inconvenient Truth's Oscar win for best documentary. The attacks are following classic Karl Rove strategy of undermining an individual's strengths--in this case, calling into question the energy bill of Gore's Tennessee estate in order to portray him as a hypocrite in matters of climate change and environmental issues. Even though Gore's estate does use more power than the "average American home" the accusations and implications are seriously skewed. Gore famously buys "carbon credits" on the open market to offset his personal "carbon footprint," and the energy they actually use is green, in that it is from renewable sources and therefore costs considerably more (a fact that the right wing pundits must find terribly inconvenient, as they consistently fail to mention it). Keith Olbermann does a pretty good job of exploding this mishmash of half-truths and innuendo, and rightly exposes it as another neocon attempt at climate change denial.

But there's a lot more at work under the surface, I think, and while Olbermann gets it, I'm surprised that nobody else in the mainstream media--the blogosphere either, for that matter--has focused on this development more. The issue isn't that the GOP's hatchet men (from Limbaugh on down) are taking shots at Gore, but rather why are they taking shots at Gore? Remember, Gore isn't running for any office. He's been happily scooting around the country for the last six years, giving speeches at universities and showing off his mastery of Power Point. He's doing Saturday Night Live and winning Oscars. Heck, even Karl Rove took a shot at Gore on Tuesday with an "I invented the internet" barb. Why are they wasting so much energy on a non-candidate while leaving Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama relatively unscathed?

Because I think the GOP is terrified of Gore entering the race. Clinton carries a lot of baggage that will motivate the GOP base come '08. Obama, rock star though he may be, has a severe experience deficiency that would readily be exploited by John McCain or Rudy Guliani in the general election. The Republicans would love to go up against either of these two. Gore, though, isn't an easy target no matter what some may say, and is far more popular as a person now than he was when he won the popular vote back in 2000. Is it any wonder the GOP is worried about Gore pulling a latter-day Nixon-style comeback?

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