Clinton and Gore, Together Again

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By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: August 5, 2009

WASHINGTON — It was a stirring scene: Bill Clinton, the former president, and Al Gore, his former vice president, back together, sharing a long and emotional hug as Mr. Clinton delivered back to American soil from captivity in North Korea two journalists who worked for Mr. Gore.

The tableau was a visible reminder of how circumstances had conspired over the past few days to bring all the reigning families of the Democratic Party together around the drama of Mr. Clinton’s trip to North Korea.

There on the tarmac in California were the two dominant Democrats of the 1990s, having helped to ease an international crisis on behalf of an administration in which Hillary Rodham Clinton serves as secretary of state to the man, President Obama, who defeated Mrs. Clinton last year in a bitter race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Within those three families, there have been many feuds and bruised egos over the years. Most of them now appear to have been set aside. While Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore did not linger together in public on Wednesday morning, and have had relatively little contact over the past eight years, according to an associate of the two men, they have both built post-White House roles and reputations that seem to have left them at peace with their shared pasts.

For just a moment, even with their extra heft and greyer hair, it was easy to recall the most famous time Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore appeared together, campaigning across the country in 1992 as the Democratic candidate for president and vice president. It was a ticket that seemed to challenge political wisdom — two men, both relatively young, both from the South, both moderates — and seemed to augur a new chapter in American politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/us/politics/06gore.html?hp

[Justitia]

1. well, we're the good guys, so when it comes down to it, we hang together.

I really liked the moment on the tarmac as well.