I'm sure Al is quite self satisfied with the contrast between his success and the current state of America and it's president. You morons elected Bush TWICE! The current Democratic congress looks like the biggest wimp squad on earth - completely spineless in the face of lawlessness and corruption.. Enjoy your fate jackasses.

Even though I voted for Mr. Gore in the 2000 election when he was robbed of the office of President of the United States and would dearly love to see him as President, I agree with the stance of Tom Grieve that he is where he is needed and that he won't run for the Democratic nomination. He can and will do more for the world in his current role than he ever could as President. The future of the Earth depends heavily upon his leadership in saving the planet. Please Mr. Gore, continue in your role as leader in the struggle to save the Earth.

Here's where the "inside the Beltway" view goes completely blind:

The main reason Al Gore won't run in 2008 has to do with his role as a board member in the Apple stock backdating scandal.

Whether or not as a board member he played any active role in oversight of Apple's actions in making backdated stock grants to top executives, the fact that he is so close to an active SEC and/or criminal investigation makes him positively radioactive for the '08 race.

The Keystone Kops branch of the punditocracy should be piecing this together some time in late 2010.

The problem with Tim Grieve's analysis is that you just can't overlook that the President is the most powerful single human being on Earth. Gore should really look at this picture. He could do more to move the climate change, and other important social justice and environmental agendas, forward, as president than as a private citizen, Nobel prize or no. I for one think he should abandon caution and run, but absolutely not hire Bob Shrum or any other conventional thinkers as campaign aides.

Wouldn't running for and being elected president of the United States provide Gore with the ultimate platform from which to fire his deteriorating climate canons?

The instant change of stance from the current Administration would be mind-blowing. The immediate changes he could inact in his new capacity would have immediate global ramifications, even though he'd be just "another politician," albeit one with great power to wield.

Kyoto Protocol acceptance? Check.

Clean out the EPA? Done.

The list goes on and on.

Do it, Al, DO IT. Not just for you, FOR US!

I know it's not polite to point out spelling mistakes/typos, but this is the fourth time JUST THIS WEEK that I've seen this:

"shoe-in"

It's "shoo-in," as in: "Shoo-shoo, little bird."

Has nothing to do with shoes or your feet.

Just saying.

"He'd turn into -- again -- just another politician, when a lot of people thought he might be something better than that."

A lot of people also have the naive belief that Bill Clinton is more than "just another politician". Sadly, the only candidate who actually deserves to become the next president of the United States is Dennis Kucinich.

Gore (along with his comical sidekick, William Jefferson Clinton) picked up the notion of "regime change" in Iraq (from those zany folks who brought you "the Project for a New American Century") long before the term "yellowcake" became something that you wouldn't find in a bakery, or under Saddam's bed, for that matter. Worse than that they did everything in their power to conceal that real "inconvenient truth" of the nonexistence of Saddam's alleged "WMDs" as far back as 1997 ( mostly out of fear of "neocon" retribution).

His record on the environment has to include the devastation that NAFTA has had on Mexico, for an example, and during the Clinton/Gore years many of us were disheartened by the record "privatization" of public lands that these two corporate lackeys presided over.

We all want someone that we can believe in.

(Since we are told, repeatedly by the corporately owned and operated media, that Dennis Kucinich is virtually "unelectable" ...I'm afraid we'll have to just keep on searching.)

And their 53rd place ranking in size and money of all the lobbying groups.

That someone who is "better than that" was in office. Frankly, I'm pretty sick of the "not better than that" folks.

And since running for President is an act of hubris, I would PREFER someone who has "spent the past couple of years defying his ego and sublimating himself to a larger goal" rather than, say, someone who was mollycoddled and molded into the part by politically Machiavellian friends of his father.

Just sayin'.

They say people get the government they deserve. Since the so-called election of 2000 and the years that have followed, it seems America doesn't deserve a democracy. Instead, it's clear 25% thirst for imperial fascism, while the rest are content to hem and haw and let it happen.

We need Al Gore, but we sure don't deserve him.

...the tepid lame boring careful campaign he ran for president last time. Given the economy and all in 2000, he should have been a shoe-in! And do you really think he could win the presidency by campaigning the same way he does for the environment?!? Undoubtedly, he would fall back into the same tepid lame boring careful campaigner he was in 2000.

What Al Gore represents is a leader who is above the fray. He is from outside the Beltway, and outside politics during this horrible period where the paradigm of checks and balances degraded to a gotcha game of throwing mud and shit at each other.

America could truly elect this man without the stench of partisanship that will sully this contest damn near no matter what. Republican's chastised by their choice in the worst president to ever lead this country, will be able to exercise a sort of contrition by voting for the man they should have in 2000. Democrats will be able to right the wrong that was committed against them by the capricious Supreme Court in 2000, and re-elect the man who won the election that year.

All in all, everyone will have a reason to vote for Gore, and feel good about it. He is the only candidate who had beaten George W. Bush. The rest, particularly those Senators in the middle of the mud and shit slinging contest, have not shown that they can do anything against the petulant boy king. Even now, there is all but gridlock up there, so no one looks particularly good.

America needs Al Gore, because America needs someone they can agree on that is not encumbered with.... well... shit and mud.

Besides, he will have the very best bumper sticker in the history of politics:

Re-elect Al Gore 2008.