I’m With Al On This

Former Vice President Al Gore is on the stump, promoting his new book, “Assault on Reason.” One of his points, something I agree with&#185, is the marginalization of elections, treating them like horse races or beauty contests.

Here’s what TVNewser wrote about Gore’s appearance on Good Morning America.

After promising to “dig deeper” later, in an as-yet-unaired segment, Sawyer looked off-camera and said “to dig not very deep, at my peril here, I just want to say one more time. Donna Brazille, your former campaign manager, says ‘if he drops 25 to 30 pounds, he’s running.’ Lost any weight?”

Gore laughed heartily. “I think millions of Americans are in the same struggle I am on that one,” he responded. “But listen to your questions. The horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on Britney and K-fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are.”

When I first wrote about this back in Janurary, I quoted Ann Coulter. Now Al Gore. Could there be stranger bedfellows? Yet they’re on the same page here.

Looking at polls, statistics and Al Gore’s weight are simple – but that’s not reporting. That’s not news. It’s really ‘newsroom helper’… a way to fill more space with less product. And, it’s a disservice to all of us.

No matter what the election, our decisions are important. There are matters of taxes, the environment, even war and peace.

The horse race element just takes our attention off the real issues and makes the whole thing superficial. It does us all a disservice.

&#185 – As you probably know, Al and I part company on An Inconvenient Truth.

Move Over O.J.

Helaine will be the first to tell you – My all time favorite TV show was the O.J. Simpson trial! I couldn’t get enough.

What a cast. There was Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark, Judge Ito… I’m sure you know them all.

The civil trial with the Goldman and Brown families wasn’t televised. Darn! I felt cheated.

Now it looks like there will be a new series of trials for me to follow… and it’s a major surprise because I stumbled upon “Act 1” as I got out of the shower and turned the TV on.

It’s just the first in a series of Anna Nicole Smith related court appearances. Be still my heart.

Today, live from Florida, the hearing attempted to decide Anna Nicole’s final resting place. Let the games begin. These people will agree on nothing.

There was the boyfriend/attorney/possible father… the unfortunately named, Howard K. Stern. Also appearing was Anna Nicole’s estranged mother, Virgie Arthur. There were attorneys of every shape and size. And, there was the judge, The Honorable Larry Seidlin.

Circuit Judge Seidlin is straight out of central casting. He is tan with an even tanner (is that a word?) bald head. Where Lance Ito was reserved and proper, Larry Seidlin is auditioning for his own courtroom show!

I don’t mean to make light of Anna Nicole’s death. However, her life was such a circus, it seems unlikely anything will be agreed to by all parties. That means guaranteed good TV watching for me.

Still to come, custody of the daughter and possible control of the fortune… if there is a fortune. That’s to be decided too.

This is the mother’s milk of the cable news networks daytime programming. Don’t look for a whole lot of restraint on their part. The participants… they don’t even know what restraint means!

Anna Nicole

As of tonight, I believe I am the only man in North America who never slept with Anna Nicole Smith. Could this story get any weirder?

Quotation

Cousin Michael and I traded emails about Anna Nicole Smith last night. Michael, not as attuned to pop culture, wondered what makes this such a big story?

I offered, she was this generation’s Marilyn Monroe, though Michael answered:

No, Monroe was really an artist; she could really act. Also, Monroe was really beautiful. And Monroe was an original, not a cheap imitation. Finally, Monroe’s paramours were John F.Kennedy, Arthur Miller, and Joe DiMaggio, not an assortment of nobody slimebags and sleazeballs.

Without going through our whole philosophical discussion, Michael left me with this quote, from Karl Marx. Marx wouldn’t normally be my ‘go to’ guy for attribution, but this really is timeless and amazingly insightful.

History repeats itself : “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Ain’t it the truth.