An Inconvenient Truth

In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to. -- Roger Ebert

Went to An Inconvenient Truth last weekend. Wow. Two thoughts come to mind while walking out of the theater:

1. How did we let things get this bad, despite so many warnings?

Gore walks us through a thick, meaty presentation of the evidence that mercilessly skewers all skepticism and apathy. The thesis is powerful, the science is indisputable, the consequences are dire. We need to change, and we need to do it now. Pardon the former Veep for sounding shrill, but the end of the world is at stake. Literally.

2. Boy, did we back the wrong horse in 2000 or what?

It's not exactly the world's best kept secret that I loathe our current president and am pretty sure he will be reviled by our posterity for his incompetence, his corruption, and his lack of character or substance. I'm pretty sure that even the most strident W supporters in 2000 are at least a little disappointed to know that they elevated a f*&king cartoon character to the presidency. At the same time, however, I totally fell for the "both candidates are the same" media narrative in 2000 and voted for Nader.

Of course, the last 6 years have shown beyond any doubt that I was wrong on that one, but seeing this movie showed me just how far off the mark I was in my opinion of Al Gore. The Gore we see in this film is not only articulate, knowledgable, and fluent in the hard facts and statistics of the matter at hand-- we knew Gore was all that before-- but he is also witty, charming, and sympathetic. He is an incorrigible optimist, even while soberly explaining such dire matters, and even manages the occasional joke or tongue-in-cheek moment masterfully, like someone completely comfortable in their surroundings.

Basically, nothing like the wooden, narcoleptic personality that the media tried soooo hard to convince us was Al Gore.

He's been impressive for a long time, now. Dedicating his post-presidential run years to travelling the world giving this presentation over and over again, trying to change the world for the better is a far superior use of such a man's time than the selfish, greedy pursuits of most ex-presidents and presidential candidates. Gore was doing great things long before then, however; the stands he took as a representative, and then senator, and even as VP, showed a store of wisdom, foresight, and courage rarely seen in the federal government.

I'm slowly becoming more and more convinced that the Draft Gore people, who I used to think were wackos, are right: it is Mr. Gore's patriotic duty to step up and set things right. He is the only person out there with the brass to do what needs to be done and the foresight to successfully undo the havoc that a decade and a half of conservative ideologues have recklessly wrought upon our country. He has the experience, he has the record, he has the support, and face it folks, he's already won it once (and his odds looked a lot worse then than they do now). Mr. Gore needs to give the 52% of us who foolishly voted for Bush or Nader in 2000 the chance to rectify the horrible, horrible mistake we made.

Gore for President in 2008.