Frankly, The Other Charlotte’s blog this morning on the weirdness of Al Gore made me wonder if those butterfly ballots in Florida had been God’s way of saving the world from a poor fellow totally unsuited to the job of being president.
You gotta feel sorry for Al Gore, forced into the straightjacket of politics by the domineering Albert Gore Sr. Some sons of powerful men, forced into a career they might not otherwise have pursued, of course, do triumph.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery, an expert on American dynasties, has more observations on the New Yorker piece by David Remnick that inspired TOC’s thoughts.
Emery notes:
“The world knows now, a reluctant John Kennedy was dragooned by his father into running for Congress, was elected, and spent the next few years doing little, and lamenting his fate. But then something odd seemed to happen: he came to love politics, and discovered he had a great gift. ’Fascination began to grip me,’ he said in 1959, when he was running for president. ’I saw how ideally politics filled the Greek definition of happiness: A full use of your powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording scope.’ It seems fair to say that no such ’fascination’ ever came to grip Albert Gore.”
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is the sad fact (well, only half sad) that one of the men now running for president will lose. George Bush, I think, would be okay. He has the ballast of a religious faith and a wife who clearly adores him, and, of course, he was late coming to the notion that, golly, a career in politics might be a good idea. John Kerry, on the other hand, was humming “Hail to the Chief” in prep school. He feels being president is his destiny. What if it’s not?