The great thing about being a Nobel Laureate, an Academy Award winner and not in politics is that you can speak plainly without anyone cautioning you that criticizing your own is helping the opposition.
Former Vice President Al Gore's own party is not helping much anyway and that 'you are with us against us' mentality hasn't paid him dividends; Gore engineered a global warming bill in 2009 that would put limits on CO2 but it died in the Democratic-controlled Senate, even though it would not have needed a single Republican to not only pass, but be impervious to veto.
Yet, he still can't resist taking shots at Republicans. He cites former President George W. Bush as 'pulling out' of Kyoto, though America was never in it; Gore had a hand in its creation but it was never ratified by the U.S. so saying a Republican 'pulled out' when a Democrat never put us in is silly. In 2009, Democrats had a majority in Congress and the White House no party has had in 200 years yet they did not 'put us in Kyoto' so blaming Bush is predictable, but silly.
What Pres. Obama has done is spend a lot of money - economic stimuli for legacy green technology like wind vanes and solar panels that have done nothing to curb emissions, and implementing controls on emissions for the future without any road map how to get there except a belief in the miracle of capitalism when it suits people who otherwise believe only government can do anything.
Basically, Obama has pressing short-term concerns, like high unemployment despite spending all that money, and not everything can be red alert so global warming is not making the cut; it's almost impossible that anyone in the current field of Republican candidates can defeat him - he may not govern well but Obama campaigns well - but if he can be defeated, it will only be because disgruntled progressives stay home. Progressives have not voted for a Republican in decades but they have not voted, as in 2004, when Bush trounced Kerry.
"His election was accompanied by intense hope that many things in need of change would change," Gore writes in Rolling Stone. "Some things have, but others have not. Climate policy, unfortunately, falls into the second category."
