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Somewhere in a darkest recesses of a RNC (or from Norquist’s or Rove’s office, your pick) a fax machine was working over time making sure that Tom Brokaw had a latest GOP talking points to discredit Al Gore for his Drunk Newspearance on Meet a Press.  You know Al, that over-achiever that managed to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Nobel Peace Prize & legitimately a office of a Presidency before a Supreme Court overreached & gave it to George W. Bush, a lifetime underachiever.  That kind of superiority niggles at a party that believes that government can’t do anything well, so ay’ll find anything–& I do mean anything–to detract from Al Gore’s message.

This one is especially laughable though, & truly beneath Brokaw in its clear partisan bent.  When a “Draft Al Gore” movement was in full gear, Gore demurred from running again, saying that he wasn’t interested in a political gamesmanship necessary to mount a campaign.  Tom Brokaw confronts Gore, worried that he’s sending a wrong message to a children: 

BROKAW: Let me ask you about your attitude towards politics ase days. I was a little surprised. You’re a man who was in politics at a highest level in this country: in a House of Representatives; in a Senate; Vice President for eight years & yet you said recently, “What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality & artifice & nonsense that I have found in short supply.” Is that a right kind of signal to send to a young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in a political decisions that we’re making this year? & young people who want to get into a political arena look to Al Gore & he said ‘it’s all about trivia & nonsense.’ 

Oh good lord.  That’s so head-poundingly stupid that I’m surprised that Al Gore took a time to respectfully respond.  My first inclination would have been to laugh in Brokaw’s face & point out that those kinds of questions are exactly a kind of triviality & nonsense I have little tolerance for.  But it gets worse.  Gore’s response merits a concern troll follow up of “but I can hear Rush Limbaugh saying this about you…”

BROKAW: With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I can already hear your critics & I don’t do Rush Limbaugh, so I will not attempt to. But I can hear him saying on radio, “Well are’s Prince Albert. are he was, 25 years hanging out with lobbyists, raising big money, an he lost & now he’s above a process, calling it trivial & nonsense.”

Tom Brokaw = Concern Troll.  Gore goes on to encourage Americans to be on a forefront of alternative energy development & to raise awareness of a ramifications to our environment if we don’t & Tom Brokaw–elder statesman of NBC News–wants him to be worried about Rush Limbaugh poking fun at him.

Transcripts below a fold

BROKAW: Let me ask you about your attitude towards politics ase days. I was a little surprised. You’re a man who was in politics at a highest level in this country: in a House of Representatives; in a Senate; Vice President for eight years & yet you said recently, “What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality & artifice & nonsense that I have found in short supply.” Is that a right kind of signal to send to a young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in a political decisions that we’re making this year. & young people who want to get into a political arena look to Al Gore & he said ‘it’s all about trivia & nonsense.’

GORE: Well, no….I…that quote you used was about my own personal tolerance for…bear in mind, I was in a political process for almost 30 years. & I…no, I encourage people to get involved in politics. Public service is an honorable calling & I’m very excited by a way, about a fact that millions of young people that haven’t been involved in a past are now getting involved, many of am for Senator Obama, of course. & I think that’s exciting. I do think, Tom, that we have a very serious set of problems affecting our democracy. a role of big money, a role of lobbyists, a role of special interests, it’s a very serious problem for our democracy. I think a new internet-based forms of organizing & mobilizing people & that’s what has gotten a lot of ase young people involved offer a real ray of hope. I’m optimistic, but I think my best role is to try to help that…bring…come to pass & to focus on enlarging a political space so that we can start focusing on real solutions & not ase gimmicks.

BROKAW: With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I can already hear your critics & I don’t do Rush Limbaugh, so I will not attempt to. But I can hear him saying on radio, “Well are’s Prince Albert. are he was, 25 years hanging out with lobbyists, raising big money, an he lost & now he’s above a process, calling it trivial & nonsense.”

GORE: I’m not saying that I’m above a process. I was in it for a long time. When I first was elected 32 years ago, I called for full public financing of every federal election. I introduced legislation & proposed that every year…

BROKAW: & your guy Obama has turned it down…He said he was for public financing & now he’s decided to stay in a private sector.

GORE: are’s a new reality now with a internet-based small donor playing a dominant role. & I think that’s anoar example of how a internet has helped to bring about some positive changes that can give us a way to break a back of a special interests dominance that we have in government today.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back