Inventing Al Gore - Softcover

Turque, Bill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618131604 ISBN 13: 9780618131600

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2000

Synopsis

Why did Al Gore, after angry opposition to the Vietnam War, submit to the draft? What happened in Vietnam that made him sullen and bitter? After renouncing politics, what set him back on the track mapped out for him? What made him claim (falsely) that he invented the Internet? How closely is he allied with the tobacco industry? What is the real nature of his partnership with Bill Clinton? How was it altered by the Lewinsky affair? INVENTING AL GORE addresses these issues and more as it unveils the true motivations, ideals, and idiosyncracies of one of Washington's most inscrutable men. Bill Turque, who covered both of Gore's vice presidential campaigns and the Clinton White House, draws on extensive access to Gore's key advisers, friends, and family. He unmasks a man who in private can sing and dance to George Strait's music but in public measures every comment and gesture with legendary caution. As Turque details, Gore's great political albatross -- a lack of empathy -- was hatched during his lonely childhood as the product of ambitious political parents who groomed him for the presidency. Turque's keen analysis also uncovers the genesis of Gore's questionable fund-raising and of a political platform laden with worthy but emotionally safe planks such as bioethics, global warming, and the Internet. In addition, Inventing Al Gore illuminates how personal tragedies have shaped his political life and the remarkable influence that women, from his mother to Naomi Wolf, have had on his career.
INVENTING AL GORE reveals Gore to be one of the most intelligent, idealistic men in Washington, yet one who is repeatedly prone to prevarication, exaggeration, and avoidance of hard issues. Turque offers a meticulously researched narrative filled with colorful, insightful details that sharpen the debate over whether Gore can outgrow his limitations and excel in the office he has prepared for all his life.

About this title

Review:

Bill Turque's biography of Vice President Al Gore will probably be remembered mainly for its charge that Gore smoked pot much more often in the 1970s than he has previously acknowledged. Yet this allegation--delivered by apparently credible sources--is just a tiny snippet from Gore's life story, as told by this Newsweek reporter. Turque begins with Gore's childhood years in Washington as the son of a senator and traces his steady climb to become the Democratic Party's favored candidate for president in 2000. The author admires Gore's liberal politics, but is also frustrated by what he considers the vice president's tendency to trim:

Gore is an usually thoughtful politician who has been an important, even prophetic voice on issues like global warming, arms control, and the changes wrought by the Information Age. But his life and career have also been punctuated by separations never quite achieved, and by bold strokes never quite converted into personal or political liberation.

Turque recounts a number of Gore scandals, most notably his questionable fundraising at Buddhist temples and heavy-handed calls to party donors (over which he famously claimed there was "no controlling legal authority"). And these stories clearly trouble Turque: Gore, like President Clinton, plays "games with the truth. But where Clinton's lies have been those of self-protection and survival, Gore's have by and large been ones of self-aggrandizement and glorification." Overall, Inventing Al Gore is a balanced and authoritative portrayal of a man whose most important years may lie ahead. --John J. Miller

About the Author:

Bill Turque, a national correspondent for NEWSWEEK, covered Gore's 1992 and 1996 campaigns. He lives in Washington, D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0618131604
• ISBN 13: 9780618131600
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480