Applause

“If you are a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.” - Former U.S. Senator & Vice President Al Gore

(Speaking while on a Celebrity Panel in New York 09.24.2008
Reported in the Wall Street Journal, Editorial Page A24, 09.29.2008)

Al Gore lost the election of his life and did not get to spend the last eight years becoming the most unpopular man in the world. Instead, he retreated, gained a bunch of weight, and grew a squirrel on his face. Then after some time, he reappeared, lost that sad little beard and some weight, took up a Celebrity Cause and made a boring movie out of a speech.

For that he was awarded an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize.

Aren’t people silly? Applaud them and they begin to believe all the hype. The FDA should add “Applause” to their list of Controlled Substances.

Al is another one of those “Silver-Spoon” kids who are currently running our nation into the ground. Jim Hightower’s humorous comment that George Bush was “born on third base [and he] thought he had hit a triple,” applies just as appropriately to Al.

So, what exactly has Al done to move from third-base to home plate since his crushing defeat? Well, it’s been huge! He’s jumped on a popular bandwagon. He learned how to use PowerPoint. He bought some impressive new suits. And he has talked. And talked. And talked. And, talked some more.

Some people listen to him. And why not? After all, he is Harvard educated, he has an “old money” name, he can afford handsome suits; and more importantly, he knows PowerPoint!

The point today, however, is not to comment on the state of the environment, or baseball, or PowerPoint. My point is not even related to extraordinary suits.

My point is that Al has allowed an overblown ego, brought on by fickle applause, to make public a thought he should have kept to himself. And with that silly thought expressed out loud he gave every extreme nut a license for eco-terrorism in the name of “civil disobedience.”

Talk about shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater. As loath as I am to think up new and profitable work for attorneys, Al also gave every victim of eco-terrorism a new deep pocket to sue.

The deep pocket? Why, Al, of course.

I’d imagine that right now a truly creative corporate counsel is trying to figure out how to sue Al for damages due to increased security costs based on those remarks.

Aren’t people “on” applause silly? Because of applause, Al doesn’t see the extreme and more dangerous audience when he utters whatever occurs to him. He just drones on …