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Jewish World Review August 13, 2002 / 5 Elul, 5762
Jack Kelly
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? Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
08/08/02: Picking a tree for Cheney's hanging
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