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Jewish World Review July 7, 2000 / 3 Tamuz, 5760

Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter
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Consumer Reports


Gore invented 'Clueless'

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ADMITTEDLY, many think he's an airhead who lacks substance. He does talk like a Valley Girl at times, employing such expressions as "That's no good for sure," and saying of his better half, "Isn't she cool?" He was quoted by a college roommate as having said after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot: "(W)e've got to understand who we are as a people and we don't, and we haven't formed that e pluribus unum."

His efforts to camouflage his Valley Girl speak just make things worse. Telling a reporter he wanted to discuss his "big think" ideas, he stammered, "I can't say this; it's going to sound so weird."

All those quotes were taken from a single New York Times article about the man who uttered them -- Al Gore. Naturally, this drove The New York Times to query: Is Gore too smart to be president? Mr. Gore's "challenge," the Times straight-facedly explained, is "to show that he is a regular guy despite a perceived surplus of gravitas, which at least some Americans seem to find intimidating." (Or as the candidate himself eruditely put it: "weird.")

Yes, Al Gore is about as intimidating as Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless." In the midst of the candidates' recent battle over high gas prices, George Bush pointed out that in Gore's magnum opus, "Earth in the Balance," Gore had proposed increasing taxes on fossil fuel as "one of the logical first steps in changing our policies in a manner consistent with a more responsible approach to the environment." (For sure!)

Gore quickly rejoined that although he had proposed taxing companies that emit carbon dioxide, he had also insisted that those taxes be offset by a reduction in the companies' payroll taxes so that the polluters would not pass on the tax in higher prices to consumers.

In other words, his proposal was to deplete the funds for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for no purpose whatsoever. If their overall taxes remained the same, the companies would have absolutely no incentive to produce any less carbon dioxide. (Of course, if the payroll reduction wouldn't make them whole but would merely offset a portion of the carbon dioxide tax -- well, then Gore's tax would have led to higher gas prices for consumers, as Bush said.)

But moreover: Gore was going to offset the pollution tax by cutting theirpayroll taxes? This from the guy who is now demanding that we take Social Security "off budget," and that anything less constitutes a "risky scheme"? Gore's "big think" pollution idea was to take money out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid systems to help polluters pay their tax bill.

(Am I the only person bothering to read what Mr. E Pluribus Unum is saying these days?)

Gore needs a Hail Mary pass from the sycophantic media to save his campaign, but he's not giving them much to work with. The line about Gore being too intellectual for most Americans to understand him is wearing a little thin, especially in light of Gore's dementia defense to his fund-raising problems.

Like the mob figure who used to wander around Greenwich Village in his bathrobe, lately Gore has been protesting that he has a pretty bad memory whenever asked about his questionable fund-raising. Even Gore's adjunct staff at The New York Times has remarked on how often his memory, "considered to be quite excellent -- fails." Most fabulous, when asked recently on Fox News how it was that his subpoenaed White House e-mails got lost, the inventor of the Internet protested that he is "no expert on computers."

About a week ago, Senate Democrats were doing their part to help Gore, bolstering Janet Reno's refusal to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his fund-raising improprieties -- as if she needed any further encouragement on this front. In any event, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Janet Reno whether she had demanded that Justice Department lawyers "come out a certain way" in determining whether or not to prosecute Gore.

If I could just interject here, the answer is: Of course not, you idiot. If Reno had been telling investigators what conclusions they should draw, she wouldn't have ended up with three high-ranking officials telling her to appoint a special prosecutor for Gore. (Compared to Leahy, Gore probably is smart.)

The way his excuses are going, Janet Reno might want to skip the special prosecutor and appoint a psychiatrist to investigate Gore instead, just to determine whether he's mentally competent to stand trial. Any day now he could be shuffling around Greenwich Village muttering about that e pluribus unum, cool, for sure.


JWR contributor Ann Coulter is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. You may visit the Ann Coulter Fan Club by clicking here.


Up

07/04/00: The stupidity litmus test
06/30/00: O.J. was 'proved innocent' too
06/27/00: The last guys 'proved innocent'
06/23/00: Serious Republican candidates don't get serious press
06/19/00: They weren't overzealous this time
06/16/00: Evolution of the strumpet
06/13/00: Actual journalistic malpractice
06/09/00: I did not have sexual
relations with that ... man!
06/06/00: IRS turns Bubba's screw
05/30/00: Too corrupt to be an Arkansas lawyer
05/26/00: Choose liberalism
05/24/00: Violence against coherence
05/22/00: Developmentally disabled Republicans
05/16/00: For womb the bell tolls
05/12/00: Asylum from Georgetown
05/10/00: The truth is out there, even for the clueless
05/08/00: Barbie is a liberal Democrat
05/02/00: Moving the goalpost
04/28/00: The bastardization of justice
04/25/00: How Monica Lewinsky saved the constitution
04/24/00: It's sunny today, so we need gun control
04/19/00: No shadow of a doubt -- liberal women are worthless
04/14/00: It takes a Communist dictator to raise a child
04/11/00: The verdict is in on Hillary
04/07/00: Vast Concoctions III
04/04/00: 'Horrifying' free speech in New York
03/31/00: Campaign finance reform brings out worst in senators
03/28/00: All the news that fits -- we print!
03/24/00: Net losses all around
03/20/00: To protect, serve --- and be spat on
03/16/00: Thank Heaven for the consigliere
03/13/00: Vast concoctions II
03/09/00: The bluebloods voted against you
03/07/00: The Tower of Babble
03/03/00: Vast concoction
03/02/00: Hillary's sartorial lies
02/28/00: You have to break a few eggs to make a joke
02/22/00: I've seen enough killing to support abortion
02/18/00: A liberal lynching
02/15/00: McCain and the flag
02/11/00: The Shakedown Express
02/08/00: To mock a mockingbird
02/05/00: Summing up Campaign 2000: 'Oh, puh-leeze!'
02/01/00: A Confederacy of Dunces
01/28/00: Dollar Bill's racist smear
01/24/00: How high is your freedom quotient?
01/21/00: Numismadness
01/18/00: How dare you attack my wife!
01/14/00: The Gore Buggernaut
01/10/00: The paradox of discrimination law

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