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What Was Al Gore Thinking?

Guess the meaning of the vice president’s drawings.

[To see the results of our “Guess What Gore Meant” contest, please scroll down to the bottom of this page.] 

When Nicholas Lemann interviewed Al Gore for a profile in TheNew Yorker, the vice president made several drawings to illustrate various points. Lemann provided these sketches to Slate, and we’ve reproduced them below.

If you haven’t read the piece yet, here’s a challenge: Study the drawings, then try to guess what point the vice president was making. Post your answers in ” The Fray,” and we’ll highlight the most creative ones on this page. (No cheating! Please don’t participate in the Gore-schach Test if you’ve already read the article and actually remember what the drawings mean.)

After you’ve made your guess, check your work by reading Lemann’s profile of Gore—as well as his earlier essay on George W. Bush— here. You’ll be able to download both articles as an eBook for the (free) Microsoft Reader software or as HTML for your Web browser.