Al Gore controversies

Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) and 2000 Democratic Party presidential nominee, has been the subject of several controversies. Below is a list of the controversies with a non-partisan explanation of each.

Campaign fundraising

After the 1996 election campaign, it was alleged that Gore had improperly used his White House office telephone to make fund-raising phone calls. Gore paid for the calls using a private credit card. However, under the Hatch Act, use of government property for campaign purposes is forbidden. In a press conference March 3, 1997, Gore repeatedly stated that "no controlling legal authority" said there was any violation of law. By this, Gore apparently meant that no case law had interpreted the relevant statutes to apply to privately-funded use of a government-owned phone. Gore's carefully parsed phrase was widely perceived as overly-technical and lacking in candor.

Gore was similarly criticized for characterizing as "community outreach" a fund-raising appearance April 29, 1996, at the Buddhist Hsi Lai temple in Hacienda Heights, California. The temple fundraising luncheon attended by Gore was implicated in a campaign donation laundering scheme. In that scheme, donations nominally from Buddhist nuns in lawful amounts had actually been unlawfully channeled from foreign sources. Critics noted that the nuns, who each supposedly gave $1000 to the Clinton-Gore campaign, had actually taken monastic vows of poverty.

Attorney General Janet Reno on September 3, 1997, ordered a review of Gore's fundraising and associated statements. Based on the investigation, she judged that appointment of an independent counsel was unwarranted. Republicans accused Reno of politically protecting the Clinton-Gore administration by this decision.

Missing Gore e-mails

In 2000, the Department of Justice announced that it was launching a criminal investigation into non-compliance by the Clinton White House with a subpoena that had been issued, for the delivery of thousands of e-mail messages, including thousands of specifically requested messages relating to Vice-President Gore. The missing e-mails spanned most of the years of Gore's vice-presidency. The Vice-President himself was not personally implicated in the criminal aspect of this probe.

Influence on the Internet

On March 9, 1999, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Gore on CNN. During this interview, Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." His statement caused no surprise at the time, and none of the journalists who covered it thought it worth including in their stories. [1]

But two days later, the Republican Party began issuing press releases and statements denouncing Gore for claiming to have "created the Internet". Conservative news outlets, pundits, and activists quickly repeated many variations on this theme in order to discredit Gore. The statement soon metamorphosed into the meme "Al Gore said he invented the Internet!" One Republican press release noted that the ARPANET, the Internet's predecessor, existed in 1971, five years before Gore even ran for Congress.

However, observers noted that the ARPANET was a relatively small public-sector research project, whereas the Internet is a massive private-sector project that was created much later. Gore's statement referred specifically to his introduction around 1990 of a bill designed to fund the creation of an "information systems highway" for education. The bill itself, and the phrase "information superhighway" in particular, were widely seen as factors in advancing the growth of the Internet.

On September 28, 2000, an email jointly signed by Vint Cerf (often called the "father of the Internet") and Robert E. Kahn stated the following:

As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to become a commercially-driven operation.

While Gore had made many contributions to the emergence of the Internet during his career, and while he never claimed to have "created" the Internet, merely to have "taken the initiative" in its creation, the misinterpretation that he claimed to have "created" it remained with him. Gore would himself later embrace the misinterpretation to have a little fun with it. On the David Letterman Show, he joked that Americans should vote for him because "I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!"

Environment

Gore's 1992 book Earth in the Balance (ISBN 0452269350) gave Gore a reputation for strongly pro-environmentalist views. This reputation was an asset with some constituencies, but because of it Gore was often accused of environmental hypocrisy, environmental radicalism, or both.

Critics of Gore as an environmental hypocrite were able to point to Gore's long career of preference for corporate interests over conservation. Gore was an ardent supporter of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, and later of the Fast Flux Test Facility in the Hanford nuclear reservation. Gore's efforts to secure an Endangered Species Act wavier for the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River were said to have paved the way for the gutting of the ESA. According to David Brower, "This was the beginning of the end of the Endangered Species Act." Environmentalists who considered Gore an environmental phony pointed to Gore's persistent support of increased logging in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and elsewhere; Gore's support of NAFTA despite public concerns about its environmental consequences; Gore's support, as Vice-President, for the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio (despite his having vowed during the 1992 campaign to oppose it); Gore's engineering of an ugly "missiles for dead whales" deal with Norway, on behalf of Raytheon; Gore's championing of lowered standards and a "pollution credits" system at the Kyoto Conference in December 1997; etc. These and other environmentally harmful actions attributed to Al Gore, as well as criticisms of Gore by various prominent environmentalists, are detailed in Chapter 13 of Al Gore: A User's Manual, by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. Although the Sierra Club endorsed Gore for President in July of 2000, the vote was not unanimous. There was some sentiment on the Club's Board of Directors to endorse Ralph Nader in 2000, as some believed that Gore's actual environmental record was deficient and that Gore had largely been only rhetorically pro-environment.

On the other hand, Gore was frequently caricatured by the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992 as an irrational environmental extremist.

Urging press self-censorship

In 1992, the same year Gore published his book on the subject, Newsweek journalist Greg Easterbrook wrote about calls by Al Gore and Paul R. Ehrlich for journalistic self-censorship about criticisms of climate change, saying they had "ventured into dangerous territory by suggesting that journalists quietly self-censor environmental evidence that is not alarming, because such reports, in Gore's words, undermine the effort to build a solid base of public support for the difficult actions we must soon take." Easterbrook wrote: "Skeptical debate is supposed to be one of the strengths of liberalism; it's eerie to hear liberal environmentalists asserting that views they disagree with ought not to be heard." [2]

Corporate use of Gore family land

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Gore was accused of hypocrisy because of the behavior of corporations that had contracted to extract resources from land owned by his family. The corporations were the Occidental Petroleum Corporation and the Pasminco Zinc Mine.

Al Gore owned (indirectly through his father's estate) several thousand shares of Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Occidental Petroleum angered environmentalists by trying to open a new oil/gas drilling field in Colombia. Critics of Al Gore, including Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair in their Al Gore: A User's Manual, (2000), pointed out that the connection between Al Gore and Occidental Petroleum tycoon Armand Hammer was by no means "indirect," as Armand Hammer was not only a close personal friend and business partner of Senator Al Gore, Sr., but was also (until Hammer's death in 1990) a major mentor, advisor, and financial backer of the political career of Al Gore, Jr.

Additionally, the Gore family licensed mining rights on their Cumberland River Valley farm to Pasminco Zinc, which was fined in 2000 for exceeding water pollution limits. Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency found that zinc levels in the Caney Fork river near the mine were 1.480 mg/L (milligrams per liter); the maximum allowed monthly average was .65 mg/L, and the daily allowed maximum was 1.30 mg/L. Therefore, Pasminco Zinc was found on one occasion to exceed the daily maximum for zinc pollution by about 14%.

However, even the conservative Wall Street Journal stated that "mining is intrinsically a messy business, and Pasminco Zinc generally has a good environmental record" (The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2000). Two independent tests sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, conducted in September 1999 and June 2000, found that the water in the river was within legal limits, although soil tests near the river revealed troublingly high levels of heavy metals.

Gore and the internal combustion engine

Ironically, even as Gore was criticized for being insufficiently environmentalist, he was simultaneously attacked for being too radical an environmentalist. Conservative commentators frequently claimed that Gore wanted to "ban the internal combustion engine". The basis for these claims was quote on p. 326 of Earth in the Balance:

It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.

This quote clearly does not advocate the banning of the internal combustion engine. The relevant chapter advocated the replacement of the internal combustion engine with more advanced technology. Many agreed with Gore's assessment, and not only radical environmentalists---in 1998, John Smith, then C.E.O. of General Motors, said:

No car company will be able to thrive in the 21st century if it relies solely on internal combustion engines. (New York Times, January 5 1998)

[Smith] predicts a "slow phase-off" of the internal combustion engine in 20 to 30 years . . . Any auto-maker that doesn't do so risks being left in the dust. (Wall Street Journal, January 5, 1998)

Or, in other words, the C.E.O. of General Motors agreed with Al Gore that the internal combustion engine should be phased out in a few decades in favor of more advanced technology.

Nevertheless, conservatives attacked Gore, attributing different positions to him. For example, Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, stated that Gore was "a wasteful dreamer" who was trying to "do away with the internal combustion engine [and] the automobile". (New York Times, March 16, 1999) (note also that Gore never advocated the elimination of the automobile). Nicholson also said, "That unlike Clinton (who is liberal but pragmatic), Gore is an ideologue who believes the combustible engine (i.e., the automobile) is the earth's greatest enemy. (Washington Post, April 30, 1999). Jack Kemp, former U.S. House Representative from western New York and former Chairman of the House Republican Leadership Conference, stated, "Al Gore said the other day he wants to eliminate the internal combustion engine. Now let me ask you-we've got 162 million internal combustion engines on the earth. Do we want 162 million horse-drawn carriages?"

• Note that Gore never called for the elimination of the engine, just the replacement of internal combustion engines with more advanced technology.

Global warming speech

On January 15, 2004, Al Gore gave a major policy address on climate change and Bush administration policy. The speech was given in New York City, which hit a low of 2 °F on that day. Critics, such as the Washington Times, gleefully claimed that Gore was giving a speech on "global warming" on Manhattan's coldest day in 47 years. Indeed, this was the coldest January 15th since 1957, but colder temperatures had been observed on days other than January 15th in the intervening years. (For instance, January 17, 1977 hit a low of -2 °F.) Moreover, proponents of global warming claim that extreme temperatures, both cold and hot, are to be expected from the global warming phenomenon. (Please see Global warming controversy for a detailed discussion of this claim.)

Al Gore and the media coverage

Throughout Al Gore's tenure as Vice President and the 2000 election, the United States press generally did not call attention to the gulf between Gore's actual statements and what his critics claimed he had said. Gore supporters felt the "real Gore" was being ignored.

In 2002, Democratic strategist and co-host of CNN's Crossfire, Paul Begala did an analysis on the media coverage from the 2000 presidential election and found the following:

• There were exactly 704 stories in the campaign about this flap of Gore inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about George W. Bush failing to show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over 1,000 stories -- Nexus stopped at 1,000 -- about Gore and the Buddhist temple. Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy. There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones, but only 10 about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya.

Al Gore as newspaperman

After returning from Vietnam, Al Gore became a news reporter in Nashville with The Tennessean. Working as a reporter, he cooperated with law enforcement on a "sting" operation against city councilman Maurice Haddox. Gore also testified before a grand jury in the matter. Haddox's lawyer William Wilson argued during the trial that Haddox had been "set up" by "a prearranged plan born in the office of the Nashville Tennessean." Haddox was acquitted. Critics of Gore's role in the failed sting operation have questioned Gore's commitment to journalistic ethics.

Support of Parental Advisories

Tipper Gore was a founder of the "Parents Music Resource Center," which aimed to label popular music containing obscene lyrics with a parental advisory. Al Gore praised his wife's efforts in this regard. Some criticized Gore's acceptance of donations from the entertainment industry as hypocritical. He also received some criticism from free speech advocates for his support of the labeling.

Controversial Al Gore quotes

• During the October 3, 2000 Presidential debate, Gore was speaking of Medicare prescription reform. He referred to Winifred Skinner, 79, "In order to pay for her prescription drug benefits, she has to go out seven days a week, several hours a day, picking up can. She came all the way from Iowa in a Winnebago with her poodle in order to attend here tonight." The Gore campaign did not disclose until later that they paid her expenses for the visit including gas and vehicle rental. Skinner's son stated that she had declined his offers to help her financially. (Washington Post, October 5, 2000, page A20)

• "I'm very familiar with the importance of dairy farming in Wisconsin. I've spent the night on a dairy farm here in Wisconsin. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, you'll have someone who is very familiar with what the Wisconsin dairy industry is all about." The Atlanta Constitution Journal (Sunday, June 18, 2000) opined that the speech was poorly worded and that spending one night on a dairy farm was not evidence of expertise. The Journal noted that it has no actual knowledge of Gore's familiarity with dairy farming.

• "Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it." Al Gore defending tobacco farmers while campaigning in Southern tobacco states in 1988.

In a 1996 speech, Gore referred to his sister's painful death from lung cancer. Later Gore apologized for profiting from his family tobacco farm and accepting campaign contributions from tobacco companies in the years following his sister's death. "Sometimes, you never fully face up to things that you ought to face up to." Gore professed. Gore became a leading advocate for the Clinton administration's aggressive anti-smoking campaign. (San Francisco Chronicle, August 30, 1996)

• On July 16, 2000 during a Meet the Press interview, Al Gore was asked if he would be in favor of postponing the execution of a pregnant woman. Gore's response was "I'd have to think about it".

Meet the Press's Tim Russert: "Right now there's legislation which says that a woman on death row, if she's pregnant, she should not be executed. Do you support that?"

Al Gore: "I don't what you're talking about."

Russert: "It's a federal statue on the books that if a woman is pregnant and she's on death row, she should not be executed."

Gore: "Well, I don't know what the circumstances would be in that situation. I would--you know, it's an interesting fact situation. I'd want to think about it".

Some viewed Gore's lack of any immediate response to the question as lacking conviction. Some believed Gore was prudent in not immediately answering a policy question he had not previously evaluated in depth. Others believed that Gore was wary of being drawn unprepared into a simultaneous debate about the death penalty and abortion.

• In a CNN interview on March 9, 1999, Gore told Wolf Blitzer: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

This quote led to Al Gore being branded with the sarcastic moniker "The inventor of the Internet." Gore's supporters point out that Gore helped to pass legislation in the 1980's that was instrumental to the development on the Internet. Critics argue that the Internet has its roots in the ARPANET which was created in the 1960's and that Gore's contributions in the 1980's fall well short of creation. (See History of the Internet) Essentially the disagreement comes down to whether one believe's Gore meant he created the internet entirely on his own (which he did not) or that he led the way in Congress on the issue of creating the internet (which even Newt Gingrich has acknowledged he did).

• On November 30, 1999 Gore described to a New Hampshire high school his reaction to a high school girl coming to him about her family's poisoned well in the late 1970's: "I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing. I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee -- that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all."

It has been hotly debated whether or not Gore was trying to take credit for discovering the toxic waste problem at Love Canal. The quote has been repeated with ", and Toone, Tennessee -- that was the one that you didn't hear of. But" replaced by an ellipsis (...) which subtly alters the quotes meaning.

• Gore was quoted in the New York Times December 14, 1997 edition as saying: "[Erich] Segal had told some reporters in Tennessee that [ Love Story ] was based on him and Tipper."

Though Segal later said that this was not the case, Gore's quote is technically accurate since Gore was referring to what a reporter had said and a report in the Tennessean had erroneously reported that it was based on Gore and Tipper. However, the statement was still controversial as many people felt that Gore should have known that the report was inaccurate. There was in fact some truth to the claim: The male lead in Love Story, Oliver Barrett IV, was based on Al Gore and his college roommate actor, Tommy Lee Jones. However, the story was not in anyway based on Gore's relationship with Tipper.