Jewish World Review August 13, 2002 / 5 Elul, 5762

Jack Kelly

Jack Kelly
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When Gore said he wanted to be his 'own man,' what was he thinking!?


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Al and Tipper Gore wanted to see Bruce Springsteen on tour, but didn't want to have to pay for the tickets, according to Roger Friedman, an entertainment reporter for Fox News.

"Tipper tried to get free tickets to the Springsteen show for the entire Gore staff," Friedman said a source close to Springsteen told him. "When that didn't work, and she was told even paid admission would be hard to come by, the ex-second lady persisted.

"They wound up being offered four...but when they were asked to pay $75 apiece ($2 per ticket less than the peasants are being charged), they said forget it," Friedman said his source told him. (Tipper later changed her mind and bought the tickets.)

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this story. People in politics expect to have favors done for them that are not done for the hoi polloi. What makes the story remarkable is Al Gore's phenomenal hypocrisy.

On Aug 4, Gore published in the New York Times an op-ed piece in which he described himself as a tribune of the people, fighting for justice against George W. Bush, scion and protector of the rich and foe of the common man.

"There has always been a debate over the destiny of this nation between those who believed they were entitled to govern because of their station in life, and those who believed that the people were sovereign," Gore said.

Someone should read Prince Albert's resume to him. Gore is the son of a millionaire U.S. Senator who made much of his money while in public service, chiefly for performing favors for his patron, Armand Hammer, an oilman of dubious ethics. Not too many of the poor and downtrodden lived at the posh Fairfax hotel, or attended the exclusive St. Alban's school. As a youth, Gore's closest brush with poverty and oppression came when he and his parents were denied rooms at a segregated hotel in the South because they had a black servant travelling with them.

The Gores have a history of being more generous with the taxpayers' money than with their own. In 1998, Gore was called by some "Vice President Scrooge" after his tax returns revealed charitable contributions of just $353 on an adjusted gross income of $197,729.

Stung by criticism, the Gores stepped up their charitable giving. In 1999, Gore gave away $15,000 of the $240,792 he was paid that year, about six percent of his earnings. But that heartless scion of the rich, George W. Bush, gave 16 percent of his income to charity that year.

In his op-ed, Gore said he and Bill Clinton were right to fight for "the forgotten middle class" against "the forces of greed." Might he have had in mind Clinton himself, who, though he has become a millionaire, wants the taxpayers to pick up his legal bills arising from the Monica Lewinsky affair? Or perhaps he was thinking of Hillary, who purloined furniture belonging to the government when she left the White House, and who wanted to keep contributions from Sam Waksal, the indicted head of Imclone?

Gore blamed Bush's tax cut for the economy's troubles. "Their purpose was and is ideological: to provide $1.6 trillion in tax giveaways for the few while pretending they were for the many," Gore said of Bush and Cheney. Gore's thesis took a big factual hit July 31 when the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis released revised financial data for the last four years.

The BEA's revised data reveal the economy was stagnant for the last six months of Clinton's term; that a downturn began before Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, and that the economy didn't begin growing again until the third quarter of last year, just after the Bush tax cut was passed.

Gore's piece was headlined: "Broken Promises and Political Deception." The byline read: "Al Gore, vice president from 1993 to 2001, teaches at Fisk University and Middle Tennessee State University." Gore didn't mention that he also is vice chairman of Metropolitan West, a Los Angeles-based financial services firm, which pays him macrobucks for doing not much.

That couldn't be "political deception," could it?

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08/08/02: Picking a tree for Cheney's hanging
08/06/02: Fears about the Department of Homeland Security are misplaced
08/01/02: The greatest strategic deception since Eisenhower convinced Hitler the Allies were going to land at the Pas de Calais?
07/30/02: State Dept.'s anti-American actions
07/26/02: Journalists are making sure Americans can't differentiate between the stock market and the economy
07/23/02: Iran's is on the verge of a social and political explosion. So why is media ignoring it?
07/17/02: FBI isn't supposed to stand for Foolish, Blind and Incompetent
07/12/02: The ICC tramples on rights Americans take for granted
07/09/02: Was LA International Airport shooting, in fact, good news?
07/02/02: What the "intelligence community" can learn from Alexander the Great
06/28/02: Muslim link in Oklahoma City bombing revisited
06/25/02: A good environmental scare needs two ingredients - an impending catastrophe, and someone to blame for it
06/21/02: Stirring the security pot
06/18/02: Why the military is so messed up
06/14/02: Vast majority $68.7 billion proposed for weapons will be spent on systems of little use in the war on terror
06/12/02: Bush saw them and raised them, and he's holding the aces
06/10/02: Some heads need to roll
06/04/02: A new draft for the 'war on terror'?
05/31/02: So the FBI has finally caught up to our priorities?
05/29/02: Taking on common sense
05/23/02: Political terrorists
05/21/02: There is a great deal to fret about, but I've never been more optimistic
05/15/02: If there is a way for America to lose the war, Gen. Tommy Franks can find it
05/13/02: Impartial justice against Americans by the UN?
05/07/02: Want to win the 'war on terror'? Reinstate the draft
05/03/02: An expanded NATO is needed as a counterweight to the UN and the EU
04/29/02: Islamic 'smarts'
04/26/02: Did Bush play his Aces with Abdullah wisely?
04/23/02: Why peace in the Mideast is closer than ever
04/19/02: What the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank gained from the "peace accords"
04/17/02: Logical Muslim allies
04/10/02: How to guarantee an infinite Mideast war
04/08/02: Saddam's American friends
04/05/02: Arab winners and sinners
04/01/02: Why is the commander of U.S. Central Command not coming clean to the American people?
03/31/02: Dubya under attack … by conservatives
03/26/02: Saddam watch coming to an end?
03/21/02: Get the Jews!
03/19/02: It's time pols and gov bureaucrats be held to the same standard of accountability we insist for corporate execs
03/15/02: Khaki Throat
03/12/02: Making foreign cheaters pay
03/08/02: Timidity and indecision by senior American commanders
03/04/02: Why 9-11? Ex-CIA officials come clean
02/25/02: Don't rule out a quick victory --- even if prez says otherwise
02/21/02: Saving our military from itself
02/19/02: Front Page fiction
02/15/02: Our European allies are like the fat kid who wants to play quarterback
02/13/02: Is the Army in danger of becoming "irrelevant"?
02/11/02: So, I "propagate hatred" …
02/06/02: Bush whacking the media
02/04/02: Why serious folks disregard the European Union --- and why Bush must, too
01/30/02: Give economy pneumonia in order to protect it from a cold
01/28/02: Media is its own worst enemy
01/25/02: Journalists making road to peace a bumpy ride, or: A case study in stupidity
01/23/02: Toward a stronger defense at a lower cost
01/21/02: How Bush could be Generations X and Y's Kennedy ... and guarantee a GOP victory in the midterm elections

© 2002, Jack Kelly