Al Gore, Part II

Al Gore is getting a lot of love in the media right now. Indeed, Gore deserves enormous credit for drawing the world's attention to the problem of global warming.

But every time I see Joe Lieberman cheerleading for Bush's insane war (as Lieberman did yesterday), I can't help but think to myself, "Al Gore wanted this guy to be his vice president!?"

Now look, I get that Gore is not Lieberman's keeper. And maybe Lieberman developed Stockholm syndrome after the 2000 election so there was no way to really know that Lieberman would turn out to be so crazy.

But we do know this: the choice of a Vice Presidential running mate is perhaps THE most important decision a presidential candidate can make. It tells shows the voters exactly how you will make decisions as President. And the one thing we did know about Lieberman (during the Monica scandal) was that when push came to shove--Lieberman chose to side with the other guys.

And Al Gore wanted this guy to be his Vice President?

If Gore had chosen Bob Graham to be his running mate, he would be President right now (probably no 9/11, certainly no Iraq war, the Katrina disaster never spirals out of control, no Roberts or Alito on the Supreme Court).

It seems to me that Gore did everything he could to just barely lose--he picked Lieberman, hired Bob Shrum, didn't ask Clinton to campaign for him, just shucked and jived the entire campaign rather than taking credit for 8 years of peace and prosperity (and the crazy part is--he still got the most votes). Gore's a good man, I voted for him in 1992 and 1996, but I don't think he should run in 2008.