Gore's Grace Note
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000, at 10:11 PM ETAs predicted earlier today, Gore faced the trade-off between grace and honesty by yielding to the demands of graciousness. Indeed, his concession surprised me with the degree to which it sought courtesy at the expense of candor about what has actually been happening during the past 35 days.
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponThe graciousness came in Gore's unqualified expressions of support for the winner. He said he had called George W. Bush to congratulate him and offered to meet with him to help "heal the divisions of the campaign." Quoting Stephen Douglas, the man Abraham Lincoln beat in 1860, Gore said, "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism." He expressed the hope that God would bless Bush's "stewardship of this country." He said he would "put aside" any feelings of rancor and accept the outcome. He urged his supporters to do the same. "Some have expressed concern that the unusual nature of this election might hamper the next president in the conduct of his office," Gore said. "I do not believe it need be so."
Gore smiled through his entire statement and made extensive use of his talent for self-deprecating humor, perhaps because it is his only real rhetorical skill and perhaps because it was a way to avoid placing blame on his opponent. He acknowledged that he blew it in his home state of Tennessee and said that when he called Bush to concede tonight, he promised that this time, he wouldn't call back. He ended with a wisecrack: "And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it is time for me to go."
The lack of candor came in Gore's failure to say anything at all to indicate that he continues to believe he really won the election or that George W. Bush played foul in taking the prize away from him. Gore's only note of complaint was when he said that he "strongly disagreed," with the Supreme Court's decision, but he quickly added that he would accept it. When he wanted to say something to indicate that he was holding fast to his principles, Gore used lofty phraseology not quite in keeping with the colloquial tone of the rest of the speech. "While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs," he said, "there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party." At one point, he did allow that he was "disappointed."
Is it ungracious of me to discern something false in Gore's upbeat tone and presentation? He seemed to me like a man who smiles to keep from crying. Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate for Gore to curse the gods or hurl imprecations at the victor. But by entirely burying the emotions he must be feeling--anger, outrage, and the sense that he was the victim of massive injustice--I think Gore failed the test of sincerity.
Nine Is So Weird, You Should Probably Go See It
How Will Michael Jackson's Death Change Music?
What Jenny Sanford Wrote in Obama's Facebook News Feed
The 12 Best Cheeses To Serve at Christmas
Oops—I Forgot I Was Piloting This Plane
Can You Believe What Joe Biden Said This Week?
Reader Comments from The Fray:
Go Jacob. Absolutely, and then some. It was a very nice speech, well calculated and executed to position himself as best he can to run again in four years. It did nothing to address the legitimate feelings of bitterness of the more than half of the electorate who voted for him, or those in Florida who tried to vote for him and were turned away, or the black community in general, who turned out for him and the party in record numbers only to be shushed by the Gore recount folks and ultimately crushed by the Supreme Court, with the 14th Amendment of all things. Leaders are supposed to help us heal such wounds. When injustice happens, leaders are supposed to help us fix it. When it can't be fixed, leaders are supposed to articulate a common understanding of what happened so at least we can try our damndest to keep it from happening again. Gore walked away from all of that responsibility, that he might lead another day. Well, we can get another leader in four years, thank you very much. We needed him to be our leader last night.
--John Neffinger
(To reply, click here.)
How could a "normal" individual hide the emotion that must accompany the defeat as experienced by Al Gore? If you have been trained and conditioned to the point where you can turn off all emotion, i.e. to the 0 value level, then it's not hard to understand the behavior as portrayed and seen in Al Gore's concession speech. I think that we may have seen a little smirk, (some sort of a "victory"), in that he was able to do what he did!
--Dick Loew
(To reply, click here.)
The Vice-President seemed to be talking through his teeth last night as if he was holding back all the anger and frustration over having been robbed of the presidency. Nevertheless, he had no choice, but to say the things he did. If he were to have followed the path of his fellow Tennessean, Andrew Jackson, by cursing and griping his way through a concession speech, then he would have permanently ended his political career.
I think that after a year or two of self-reflection and perhaps some reinvention, we're going to see Gore in '04 once again trying to get the Democratic nomination. Whether his party will want him back is another issue, but if he returns as a "reform" candidate (much like Old Hickory did after he lost), then I like his chances, and his fake, conciliatory concession was simply a master political stroke ensuring him some future political viability. After all, Americans don't like sore losers, even if, like Gore, they have a legitimate reason to be pissed off.
--Brandon Ritter
(To reply, click here.)
(12/14)