Gore
Zelnick, Bob
BOOKS IN REVIEW Bland Ambition Gore: A Political Life Bob Zelnick Regnery /384 pages / $29.95 REVIEWED BY Philip Terzian I n the world of daily journalism, there are three things we know...
...But principled he ain't...
...He has none of Bill Clinton's capacity to connect with an audience, or George W. Bush's congenial nature...
...An intelligent man, he has absorbed a vast fund of practical knowledge, and learned a lot at his father's knee...
...Gore's career in public life is not necessarily the one he might have chosen on his own: He has little of the natural politician's social instinct, or willingness to devote himself to trivial tasks...
...But it seems evident from the material gathered here that the vice president is a conflicted man, caught between his private avocations and filial piety...
...His poll numbers are abysmal, and not improving...
...On a more ominous note, for a future monarch of the executive branch, Gore has few gifts in the art of compromise, and no discernible interest in opposing arguments...
...issues — abortion, obscene rock lyrics, tobacco, the environment—he has not just switched sides when circumstances demanded that he do so, but has blithely left friends and colleagues in the dust while doing so...
...To journalists, "controlling legal authority" was not emblematic of minor corruption, but a lamentable turn of phrase...
...So while his father was penalized for his resemblance to Senator Claghorn, Albert Jr.'s interest in policy minutiae has served as protective coating against skeptical journalists In the nation's capital, it is considered part of the natural order that Republicans are inherently corrupt but coldly efficient, while Democrats are cheerfully inept but basically decent...
...Some would argue that this is the mark of a ruthless politician who will do what is necessary to stay in the game...
...In one pitiable (and, I hope, apocryphal) story, childhood music lessons were terminated with Mrs...
...even in the presence of the gregarious Tipper, he looks tense, distracted, ill at ease, as if being pushed in some direction against his will...
...Apparently, from the time of his birth, the formidable Pauline Gore was determined that her son would be groomed for the presidency...
...It is no wonder that Gore, unlike Clinton, clearly revels in domestic bliss: The worshipful Tipper is a lifelong antidote to Pauline Gore, and the Gore home is a refuge, not an address of convenience...
...Gore has not propelled himself to his present predicament...
...Gore's lumbering campaign is no accident...
...He has followed in his father's footsteps with reluctance, and been endlessly prodded by his formidable mother...
...For it turns out that the three things we know about Albert Gore are not quite true, but the elements of truth they contain are closely related...
...He never wanted to be vice president, he doesn't want to be president—and if things keep going as they are, he'll get his wish...
...When they moved to Washington, the Gores did what they thought rich people do: They lived in a self-consciously posh hotel—rent free, thanks to an owner-cousin—sent their son to St...
...And Gore looks suitably tormented...
...Like Ronald Reagan and old age, he kids himself about it...
...To the average reporter, this sounds like something close to perfection...
...Gore seems like a principled, policy-minded statesman who is, unfortunately, not so exciting in person...
...The American Spectator August 1999 67...
...has not hesitated to do what he had to do to get ahead...
...or that his wife should feel obliged to sell him like a prom date to reluctant parents...
...Hubert Humphrey, a rather different sort of vice president, used to deploy a ghastly phrase to describe his attitude toward his work...
...Even Bill Clinton felt obliged to telephone the New York Times to complain about Gore's ineptitude...
...The second thing is his squeaky-clean image...
...He has occasionally strayed into the "moderate" camp on national security issues—he was one of the few Democratic senators to vote to authorize the use of force in the Persian Gulf—and he is famous for his sober interest in global warming, the Internet, and trade issues...
...The joy of politics...
...But that gives Gore credit for a Machiavellian sense he doesn't possess...
...Gore has been pointed in the direction of the White House since infancy, but it is not at all obvious that he wishes to live there...
...In the House and Senate, Gore quickly acquired a reputation as a man whose word was seldom his bond, and the sanctimony with which he describes his newfound principles is sometimes startling to behold...
...Yet in the pious, maladroit, apprehensive Gore, it is impossible to detect anything approaching satisfaction, much less joy, in public life...
...His ambition has been well rewarded, thus far, but it isn't ambition...
...To his credit, Zelnick does not seek to psychoanalyze someone with whom he has never conversed: That task is left to someone more presumptuous, like me...
...Perhaps that is why his tortured smile is so clearly artificial, and his manner so patently wooden...
...Albert Gore Jr...
...Brains, money, connections, drive, good looks, and furious self-deception will take you far in political life...
...cadence of black preachers, to convey passion...
...Yet his crusade is a mess...
...Voters look to the Republicans to protect them against foreign perils, and to the Democrats to expand their domestic entitlements...
...As a public personality, Gore is awkward, lackluster, stiff, and monotonous...
...On any number of44 He looks tense, distracted, ill at ease, as if being pushed in some direction against his will...
...Gore's declaration that future presidents do not play the violin...
...He tends to regard dissenting views as heresy, and ascribes evil to antagonists...
...It is often noted that when the president and vice president meet groups of people with whom they disagree, Clinton is politely empathetic and Gore is condescendingly hostile...
...Ostensibly, Gore should be ecstatic: He is the faithful helpmate of a popular president, times are prosperous, he has raised huge sums of money, and in so doing, has largely cleared the field of competitors...
...To some degree, this is now reflected in his lackluster campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency...
...Hammer—and Albert Jr...
...I subscribe to the third point...
...And the squeaky-clean image is decidedly fanciful...
...So, on the vision thing, Gore has largely been given a pass...
...True, there had been a Gore at Jamestown with Captain John Smith...
...Gore Junior employs the malodorous Washington lawyer Nathan Landow to do his dirty work...
...To begin with, the patrician business is overstating things a hit...
...Indeed, as Zelnick reveals, Gore is a policy-minded politician, "a moderate with a strange streak of extremism in him," and a pious manner that quickly irritates...
...He is happiest when pondering issues in solitude, or hectoring followers with his opinions...
...He is a poor speaker poorly served by his writers, and has lately taken to yelling, or imitating the PHILIP TERZIAN writes a Washington column for the Providence Journal...
...and in comparison to his mentor, Bill Clinton, Gore's earnest demeanor is taken as a sign of high character...
...To be sure, the vice president grew up in Washington, D.C...
...Gore Senior sold his prize cattle at inflated prices to Washington lobbyists...
...Gore is awkward in public, uncommonly so for a career politician...
...People can be compelled to do all manner of things, but the soul, even the soul of a politician, is not so easily deceived...
...It is not for nothing that, after eight years in the vice presidency, Gore's friends and supporters agree that the electorate doesn't know him very well and complain that his views aren't well understood...
...Yet Gore is also enough of a politician—and creature of his times—to know that Clinton remains popular with the American electorate, and so has dispatched his wife Tipper to the airwaves to talk about her husband's sense of humor and prowess in bed...
...Alban's School and Harvard College, he met his wife Tipper at a prep school dance...
...He has a tendency to stare furiously at the floor when he stands on platforms...
...That is the central mystery of Albert Gore, at least for me: Why is this man not smiling...
...Whenever another chapter in his 1997q8 campaign fundraising scandal unfolded, reporters were careful to note that these latest revelations might tarnish the vice president's "squeaky-clean" image...
...The first is his patrician background...
...Zelnick's reporting enabled me, at least, to see Gore with some clarity, and penetrate the mystery...
...Eighteen months before the election, he has already been obliged to reorganize his quarrelsome staff...
...he has been pushed...
...Alban's, and sought to instill in 66 August 1999 The American Spectator Albert Jr...
...For while Zelnick never asks a similar question, his patient, painstaking, thoroughly fair assessment of Gore's life and career is the best account we have —and are likely to have for awhile—of this famous man who is largely unknown to the American public...
...Gore is different from his father—less congenial, more introspective—and by Washington standards is considered a political intellectual...
...a decidedly unpatrician sense of ambition...
...BOOKS IN REVIEW Bland Ambition Gore: A Political Life Bob Zelnick Regnery /384 pages / $29.95 REVIEWED BY Philip Terzian I n the world of daily journalism, there are three things we know about Albert Gore, vice president of the United States...
...But the vice president's father, Albert Sr., was a poor boy from Middle Tennessee with wavy blond hair and a booming voice who did well in politics, made lucrative connections while serving in the Senate, and ended his career in the employ of Armand Hammer...
...We may be thankful to Bob Zelnick, the former ABC News correspondent, for furnishing an answer...
...His mother waited on tables to put herself through law school...
...The third thing we know is a matter of some dispute...
...He is physically ungainly, sometimes clumsy, and even when standing in the presence of the jovial Clinton, appears to be deeply anguished...
...Of course, Gore is enough of a politician to seek to turn this trait to his advantage...
...Most politicians are hypocrites, to some degree, but few have chosen to describe their sister's death from lung cancer to a national television audience, blaming tobacco for her illness —and then been shown to have faithfully done tobacco's bidding for years before and after her demise W hich brings us back to the curious disconnection between Albert Jr...
...Gore's father cultivated all manner of dubious financial ties in his lifetime—culminating in his relationship with unsavory Dr...
...The only son of a senator, raised on the top floor of the tony Fairfax Hotel in Washington, a graduate of St...
...But an element is missing in the Albert Gore package, and it's hard to distinguish...
...and Vice President Gore...
...and has been a practicing politician for the bulk of his adult life...
...is a first-generation patrician whose public reputation bears little resemblance to his private self...
Vol. 32 • August 1999 • No. 8
