PoMo Gore? - Critics, and
PoMo Gore? - Critics, and even some friends, often criticized Bill Clinton for being the perfect political expression of postmodernism because of his ability to say whatever was in his immediate interest, truth or contradictions with earlier positions notwithstanding. Now well-known political newsletterist Charlie Cook suggests that Al Gore may also have a (Stanley) Fishian streak: "Listening to former Vice President Al Gore's graceless remarks over the weekend, when he effectively blamed his 2000 presidential campaign loss on 'polls, tactics and all the rest,' one question kept coming back to me: 'Does he really believe what he's saying?'"
Actually, when I read what Gore said last weekend in Memphis — "If I had to do it all over again, I'd just let it rip. To hell with the polls, the tactics and the rest. I would have poured out my heart and my vision for America's future" — all I could think of was Pres. Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war. But I'm still a bit confused. Gore had this "vision for America's future," but was he a) muzzled by his handlers or b) did he himself, for strategic or political reasons, choose not to share it with us?