Letters to the Editor
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Corrections
I've had to post this before, and I post again:
When Salon makes a correction to an article, it needs to say specifically what the erroneous statement and the correction were.
Simply saying the article was corrected - leaving the homework to the reader to read the new version and compare it to a memory of the old version if they saw it - is not useful.
Right:
"The original article stated that Al Gore's favorite meat for dinner is horse. The corrected information is that his favorite meat for dinner is chicken."
Wrong (and the current):
"This story has been corrected since it was originally published."
As long as I'm posting: I don't think I've seen so much grass roots excitement for a candidate as Al Gore since what I've seen Robert Kennedy had in 1968.
Sure, a lot of it is driven by the desire to 'undo 2000', to right the wrong, but there's a lot more, too. We elected Nixon 8 years after he lost; let's try to do better, and re-elect Gore.
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Note to Joan Walsh
Joan, speaking as somebody who also grew up on Long Island, but has spent his entire adult life in the South, you don't turn your Long Island mouth back only when with your relatives... you never lose it. Ever. You probably just talk louder and interrupt more. If you doubt that, ask a stranger to tell you where you're from.
Reminds me of a waitress in rural Georgia, who even though assured I held a Georgia drivers license and owned property in the state, stated repeatedly: "You ain't from around here."
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AL GORE COMMENTS
The reviewer admits not voting for Gore in 2000 so one assumes he voted for Bush? If so, I find it hilarious he can criticize Al Gore's accent without choking on his words - Bush's accent is the most affected one I've ever heard, especially when you compare it to his brother's unaccented speech - but then maybe they were brought up by different nannys. I voted for Al Gore and would again - I had seen the relaxed, intelligent, thoughtful Al Gore in interviews before the 2000 election; however, the media at the time was not interested in presenting a balanced picture of either Gore or Bush. Bush was portrayed as the "average Joe" which was not even close to reality. Hopefully, the media will go back to real reporting for the 2008 elections. Though the latest article by the NY Times on the Clinton's marriage status seems to belie that hope. I hope Gore runs and wins - it would be nice to have a President who is smarter than the "average Joe".
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Chill Everybody!
What a seething bunch of letters! You folks are registering close
to hysteria. The piece was more glowing than even I expected
it to be, even here on Salon.
I think you need to chill out and think about your adverse reactions.
I fear if Andrew O'Hehir were in front of you, someone might have to
call 9ll.
Biggest problem with the grassroots folks in both parties
- RAGE and PARANOIA.
"Don't you DARE call our man portly."
It's embarrassing.
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Take a breath, guys--from someone who'd love to see Gore in the White House
Um, guys? I'm not the biggest fan of Andrew O'Hehir (always liked Charles Taylor better), but I just read many of the angry letters... and then I read the review. And I say this as somone who will go to the freaking MAT to get Al Gore into the White House in '08, thinks he would make a *fantastic * president and knows he was robbed in 2000 (see Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," Chapter 1.)
O'Hehir describes Gore as sincere, earnest, well-informed, and mentions his "soulfulness, sense of humor and professorial charisma."
In the first paragraph.
This is not a hit piece.
"the real honors went to Gore himself". Paragraph 2.
" "An Inconvenient Truth" brings this notoriously awkward politician into focus as a human being, both warm and guarded, intellectually curious" Paragraph 3.
I agree: we've got to make sure right-wing propaganda--like the hotel misunderstanding-- doesn't get repeated anywhere. But let's not lose sight of the big picture. O'Hehir liked Gore (he didn't love the movie, but the review seems fair.) salon.com likes Gore. Let's reserve our ire for Fox News, drudge, and the rest of the right-wing idiots & MSM enablers. Salon's one of the good guys: see the Sidney Blumenthal columns? see Joe Conason? Remember the Abu Ghraib photos?
Now take a deep breath.
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The Greg M and Maureen postings: not really!
There's little more odious than (in the case of Maureen) a shrieking person telling others to 'chill', or some sanctimonous "breathe" advice from someone who is bound to have some passion in there somewhere, surely.
OUR THINKING is that certain comments from the reviewer were *factually* incorrect, and it is a fact that they arose in the mainstream press. It is also a fact that both Gore and Dean were downed by this type of stuff.
I had a personal conversation with a very famous linguistics author of a bestseller, who admitted that when he did a NY Times piece on Bush's linguistic fallability, the editors *demanded* that he throw in something about Gore's speech style "to keep it balanced". Hm, doesn't that sound like Fox News?
We don't have to "save" our comments for extremes like Fox; anymore than we have to call Democrat Joe Lieberman a liberal (word: he's not). We can say what we please, when we please. And you should have enough respect for us to let us do that without your criticism on top of it (just for its own sake, I mean).
So, YOU two breathe... if there's still enough quality air left after we've pummeled our last viable candidate into the ground thereby letting in yet another Rethuglican (if I may).
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just a quick check in
Hey, I'm still in Cannes and didn't check in on these letters until recently. Obviously I've had my say already, and you guys get to have yours. Just a couple of things:
1. I certainly thought it was a highly favorable review, toward Gore and the film, and intended it as such. Thanks to the readers who have insisted on pointing that out. This entire piece is my opinion. I've never really liked Gore, but the movie made me like him. That's the deal.
2. I said the thing about being raised in a Washington hotel because Gore says it in the film. I repeat: Gore says it in the film. He says "hotel." He does not say "ordinary middle-class apartment building." His dad was a longtime US Senator, and to consider Gore anything other than a member of the ruling class, like George W. Bush and John Kerry, is just silly.
3. I said the thing about the accent because his accent sounds stronger to me now than during his White House years. He has lived kind of a schizophrenic existence, and of course I don't know that he's consciously putting it on. I doubt it, actually. But he is a politician, and like all politicians has a certain chameleonic ability to appear in different ways to different audiences at different times. His current, stronger accent fits the folksy new Al.
At the risk of repeating myself, this piece was a movie review, and in all such things your mileage may vary. It's inevitably affected by my political opinions, and I don't respect most mainstream politicians and rarely vote for any of them. But I wasn't damning with faint praise here. I was saying, heck, there's really something to this guy after all. Thanks for reading