Reply #1: That was terrific

[karynnj]

I hope that the Gore comments are being over hyped and that they are not worse than what many of us have said.

Gore has never spoken of how low a priority the Clinton/Gore administration made climate change, when the economic environment would have made passing something far easier. I looked at pollingreport.com's long series on a question designed to trade off economic gains and environmental gains and, as would be expected, the stronger the economy, the more likely people are will to sacrifice a little for the environment. (I believe Kerry that this tradeoff might not really exist and, in fact, this might be what is needed to improve the economy, but it is that perceived relationship that led the 14 Democratic Coal state Senators to write the letter they did. ) Gore was a Congressman and a Senator for long enough that he had to know how hard passing something comprehensive would be - and, having been VP, he likely knew the limits of the huge amount of power a President has.

I do realize that a VP does not have the power to set the agenda - the President does - and that he would be constrained while in office. I also have been annoyed that Gore has been a little dishonest on Kyoto and the Congress. The Byrd/Hagel vote was a few months before Kyoto ended and it laid out what the Congress thought should be required before the US signed on. It could have been used by Gore to develop something more like what was agreed to in Bali - and gotten agreement that they could impose tariffs on countries not complying. Instead the Congressional concerns were ignored and the Kyoto agreement was never brought up in the Senate. I suspect that Gore speaks of the Senate rejecting Kyoto because it is simpler to explain and because it ignores that he, like Obama, did not really do all he could to sell the issue to the Senate.

That said, I can imagine Gore's (or Kerry's) frustration that this was not given higher priority than it was. Axelrod in his comments made it clear that he thought this to be less important than many other issues - suggesting that he does not really internalize his acceptance of the science. But, looking at the two years when Obama had the House and the Senate, it is not clear that he really could have done more. With the background of the wars and foreign policy troubles, there were 4 major domestic issues - climate change, healthcare, banking/finance reform, and immigration. He was able, though the Republicans fought everything tenaciously, to make serious strides in two of them. On climate change, it seems that all he can do now is whatever incentives for clean energy he can get and using the EPA to fight to end the worst pollution sources. Given the needs, I really don't know if a President Gore or a President Kerry, who really passionately cared about this - in a way Obama doesn't, could have gotten something passed. I also don't know what,if anything, they would have lost that Obama accomplished to do this.

All written obviously before the article appears - risking looking quite stupid if the suggestions that he criticized Obama were not true or if they were more measured than I expected.