The "Meaning" of Gore's MoveOn.com Speech

[BurtWorm]

Kellyanne Conway on CNBC's Capitol Report, as reported by Bob Somerby of dailyhowler.com, demonstrates the vacuity of "maintstream" right-wing punditry:


http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081203.shtml

<begin cite>

CONWAY: Al Gore seems to be a former everything and a current nothing. I mean, one is hard-pressed to know what exactly his day job has been for the last two and a half years. He looks like the same angry guy, same boulder on his shoulder. He reminded everyone again why they didn’t like him. And one of the most popular phrases we have heard in the last almost two years now is, “Could you imagine if Al Gore had been president on 9/11,” or “Thank God Al Gore wasn’t in charge in 9/11.” This is not the kind of leader the country’s looking for now. Look, I hope he jumps in the race, ultimately, because he just is such fodder for the Republican Party. The big slogan for Al Gore should be, “Al Gore, Action Figure Sold Separately.” He looks like the same old Al Gore.

<Somerby's commentary follows>

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Whew, what a brilliant discussion!
How good does it feel when that cable money is stuffed deep down inside your pants? That cable money must really feel for Murray to degrade himself with this nonsense. And Conway, of course, was just getting started. Take a look at the empty soul of Modern Pundit America:

CONWAY: Let’s be very clear about where Al Gore was today and, more to the point, where he was not. He took his case to that hotbed of conservative ideology, New York, Manhattan. He didn’t give his speech at Vanderbilt University in his home state of Tennessee, which he lost to Al Gore handily in 2000. He’s in New York. He’s at New York University in Manhattan, which arguably is the most left-of-center place. And I split my time between Manhattan and DC. It’s the most left-of-center place on the globe. He’s going to where it is very safe, where you can stack an audience in your favor, and I think he deserves that, because here’s a guy who really is down and out and marginalized from his party. Why is he not giving that speech in the heartland?

<end cite, my emphasis>


Somerby's column today demonstrates that it's not just right-wing pundits who spout such gas, but even respectable "objective" types like Gwen Ifill of Washington Week in Review, who also skipped right over the substance of Gore's speeh to indulge in some old-fashioned Gore bashing and "political" mind reading. What did Gore's speech mean to pundits? Not what historians would find interesting about it, i.e., its full frontal attack on the mendacity of the administration, or the unusual venue for it--the fact that the audience were members of a virtual community that seems to be changing the way Democratic Party politics will be done. No, pundits were not interested in that plebian sort of meaning in which words are a guide. They wanted to know what the gestalt of it all meant for their careers as Gore bashers.

By the way, I live in New York. It is not the most left-of-center place on the globe. Giuliani and 9-11 combined forces to turn it into the world's largest suburb. But I found interesting the little bit in Conway's belch about how NY represents Gore's being down-and-out and "marginalized" in his own party. It reminded me of what the DLC crowd has been belching about lately, that candidates who make waves on the left side of the boat are doomed to capsize the party. There is something to be said for trying to scoop up all the centrists the Republican rightists are alienating. There is an opportunity for that. But there is also no better oportunity than the present to pull the whole body politic leftward.

[papau]

1. I wrote Gwen asking why "Bush lies" did not register - and all she said

on air was "Why did Gore give a speech"

:-(

[BurtWorm]

2. There's clearly a program running all pundit heads

They can't seem to deal with the honest work of analyzing someone's actual words. They immediately go to that Stupid Place, where motives hold sway. It's much easier to be there, because no one can prove you're wrong. No one can point to Al Gore's motives, because no one but Gore knows for sure what they are. But if you talk about the meaning of his words, you can be nailed for being an idiot who doesn't understand plain English.

[CWebster]

3. Just another tart in the blonde mold

doing porn for a casting couch opportunity.

[Paschall]

4. Is this a Freudian woman's undergarment?

"He didn’t give his speech at Vanderbilt University in his home state of Tennessee, which he lost to Al Gore handily in 2000. He’s in New York."