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Revision as of 21:43, 20 December 2004

One problem I have with this article is that it presents only Gore contoversies that favor the man.

If you know of any Gore controversy that does not favor him, feel free to add it. --Chan-Ho Suh 03:15, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Occidental petroleum; AIDS drugs; Cockburn-St. Clair book; a few more notes

The connection between VP Gore and Occidental Petroleum was at least a minor controversy. The article mentions that Gore's father (Sen. Albert Gore, Sr.) was closely tied to Occidental, but the coverage in this article should probably be expanded to make clearer what the allegations were.

Especially during the 2000 campaign, AIDS activists caused considerable grief for Gore in demonstrations alleging that Gore was in league with pharmaceutical companies in preventing inexpensive life-saving drugs from helping AIDS victims in Africa and elsewhere.

The Cockburn-St. Clair book, Al Gore: A User's Manual (2000), is a rather nasty slamming of Gore on all sorts of grounds. Even though their work is exceptionally well documented, it is written from an intensely anti-Gore perspective, with pens dipped in clever venom. Some of their more awful stories about Gore (even though based in fact) seem too unpleasant to repeat in an encyclopedia, especially allegations that did not involve widespread controversy at the time. (For example, Cockburn and St. Clair report that, despite Gore's hypocritical posturing in a famous Convention speech against the evils of tobacco, where he spoke poignantly and tearfully before a national audience about having held the hand of his dying sister----a cancer victim----Gore had shortly before that speech been boasting publicly to tobacco associations that he himself was a tobacco farmer.)

The WTI incinerator episode (East Liverpool, Ohio) is probably an important enough controversy to be included within a separate sub-heading under the environmental rubric. Also, it was shortly after (and perhaps because of) the big WTI-float anti-Gore protest outside the White House that Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked off to vehicular traffic.

Willie Horton "murderer furlough issue" as originated by Al Gore

I don't want to initiate a reversion-deletion war, but I would respectfully suggest that it was entirely inappropriate to remove the section outlining the controversy concerning Al Gore's use of the issue of the Massachusetts convict-furlough ("Willie Horton") against Michael Dukakis in 1988. The report aimed for balance (making it clear that Gore was not at all directly responsible for the Bush-Quayle campaign's later use of Willie Horton); if the report wasn't balanced, the cure should be to strive to edit it to make it balanced, not to delete it with the unhelpful exclamation "bullshit!"

The URL the deleter cites (from Jesse Jackson, Jr.) as refuting the section actually substantiates the fact that Al Gore was the first to introduce the murderer-furlough issue into the 1988 presidential campaign. It is true (and an editor could accurately point out) that Sen. Gore did not use Willie Horton's name when he raised this accusation against Dukakis, but he clearly referred to the furlough-escape-rape incident and attempted to portray Gov. Dukakis as soft on crime.

Also inappropriate, it would seem, was the deletion of the section concerning the controversy surrounding the claim by supporters of Jesse Jackson in 1988, that Gore at that time was being supported by the anti-Jackson establishment, as the "Great White Hope" in the South. Ed Koch's anti-Jackson comments in particular were highly controversial and probably embarrassed Gore himself, even though Koch was attempting to support Gore. Denunciations by Wilkins (and other civil rights leaders) of the 1988 Gore campaign's tactics indicate that this was was a serious controversy. To balance this section, there was information that Jesse Jackson later supported Al Gore on the national ticket, three time.

Let's discuss this a bit, and then I would suggest restoring information about those controversies.

 65.223.141.108 19:44, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Now I see that 68.6.82.11 has evidently also deleted any reference to Occidential Petroleum, which was certainly a controversy involving Al Gore. It would appear that the edits by 68.6.82.11 are aimed at protecting Al Gore from what I suppose 68.6.82.11 feels is unfair reportage of Al Gore controversies, but it strikes me that it is not at all neutral or fair simply to delete this information about controversies involving Al Gore (in an article devoted to "Al Gore controversies").

A) it is simply inaccurate to say there was a "controversy" over Al Gore introducing Willie Horton. There was no controversy at all over his remarks at the time on the furlough program, and in fact he never mentioned Willie Horton. There was a "controversy" later over ads run by George Bush, designed by Lee Atwater by his own admission to appeal to racist sentiment. That was the controversy. It is perfectly fine to mention in the Willie Horton article that Gore mentioned the program in a debate. It is, however, simply silly to say that it is therefore a "controversy" about Al Gore.

B) Ed Koch's remarks may belong in an Ed Koch controversy article. they weren't remarks made by or endorsed by Al Gore. Again, it is silly to put them in an Al Gore controversy article. You claim that there were denunciations of Al Gore by civil rights leaders. Fine, then quote a few of them with sources and provide evidence it was treated as a controversy by the press. A criticism does not by itself make a controversy.

C) In fact, the environment write-up was generally in Gore's favor. Also, it mentioned not a controversy, but a criticism. To say that a second-hand interest in stock in a major international corporations is "controversial" distorts the definition of controversy beyond comprehension. Show me some evidence of a media circus around it; if you think it was a controversy, provide some sort evidence to that effect. If you feel there is no difference between a criticism and a controversy, we should move this article to Criticisms of Al Gore.

Some criticisms (perhaps all disputed criticisms) involve controversies, so I don't see the point of this distinction. A controversy is a disputed matter, usually a publicly disputed matter.

If you look at any of the contemporary newspaper accounts of Koch's role as Gore's main anti-Jackson hatchetman, you'll see that this was extremely controversial. Jackson's campaign was especially irritated that Al Gore made a statement to the effect of, "I haven't mentioned Jackson's statement about 'Hymietown.'" The Gore campaign's role in attacking Jackson was hugely controversial in 1988. For example, see Edward Walsh and Gwen Ifill, "3 Democrats Await New York's Verdict; Koch Keeps Up Assaults on Jackson" The Washington Post, Apr 19, 1988, p. a14: Koch, who has upstaged Gore at their personal appearances and in news coverage since he endorsed the Tennessee senator last Thursday, heaped new fuel on the fire today by saying Jackson had shown "arrogance and contempt" by declining to join Gore and Dukakis in Sunday's "Salute to Israel" parade on Fifth Avenue. Koch, who previously had accused Jackson of "lying" about his past, was in turn labeled "a lunatic" by Jackson's campaign manager, Gerald Austin. Jackson said he had received "more death threats in this campaign than all the others combined, because the climate . . . has been so divisive." Before his final round of rallies in Chinatown and Harlem, Jackson told a civic group that "leaders must not shout `fire' in the darkness . . . . Hysteria will not create hope." Or look at Edward Walsh and Thomas B. Edsall, "Campaign's Legacy to Gore: Experience and Hard Feelings?: N.Y. Tactics, Koch Alliance May Be Future Liabilities," Washington Post Apr 21, 1988, p. a17: Gore's alliance with the outspoken Koch, who spent most of the campaign denouncing Jackson, could damage Gore with black voters, according to some Democrats. Although Gore insisted that Koch helped him in New York, a campaign aide said the mayor's performance in the final days of the race "unpleasantly astonished us." Some of Gore's friends yesterday acknowledged these potential problems, but said they would not last and were far outweighed by the national campaign experience and contacts that Gore acquired in the race. "There is some negative, but it is very short-term," said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). "Intermediate and long-term, it will be very helpful." "There may be some short-term animosity in the black community in Tennessee, but I think he'll rebound from that very quickly," said Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.). Rep. Thomas J. Downey (D-N.Y.), Gore's New York campaign chairman, said Gore "has some fence-mending to do with some people" but overall the campaign was a "net positive" for his long-term ambitions. Downey said Koch "overdid it at the end. Some of it will rub off on Al and he knows it. He'll just have to work a little harder."