Al Gore is completely right and completely wrong at the same time. He is right that environmental issues have taken a back seat in the Obama administration. With multiple shooting wars, an economy in a continuing state of free-fall, and a hostile House little wonder that Obama is not devoting his time to the issue.
Ironically, Gore was an extremely influential VP in his day. His personal relationship with President Clinton was critical, but so was Gore's knowing which battles to fight. In the Clinton administration economic issues were front and center, everything else was secondary. As VP Gore did not push environmental issues when the president wasn't interested. As an elder statesman Gore is not constrained by political realities.
VP influence has relied on making sure there was limited public space between the views of our government's two principles. The VP has no bureaucratic power base of his own and Presidents don't need freelancers in the White House. But as an ex-VP, the only influence comes from reaching out to the public. One thing that is fascinating as that anyone cares what an ex-VP says. Throttlebottom would be amazed.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment