Media

A couple of joint resolutions on Al Gore

Media by Dan Kennedy

Where you stand on Al Gore and pot definitely depends on where you sit: upright in a hard metal chair, railing against the triumph of baby-boomer cultural mores, or relaxing on a couch and toking on a really excellent doobie. Which explains two wildly differing media alerts that were sent out late last week.

The first, from the archconservative Media Research Center -- offering "expert documentation of the latest liberal media bias" -- was headlined LITTLE OR NO INTEREST IN GORE AND MARIJUANA. The one-page fax detailed the media's failure to report extensively on allegations that Gore smoked a lot more weed than he's admitted to.

To be sure, the MRC does raise a legitimate concern: the contrast between the media's blasé attitude toward the Gore allegations and the feeding frenzy that took place last August over whether George W. Bush had ever used cocaine is striking. But since Gore had previously conceded his familiarity with marijuana, a statement from a former friend that the vice-president was something of a stoner in the 1970s doesn't have all that much resonance. In contrast, Bush was accused of using a dangerous hard drug, and he responded ambiguously -- not that that excuses the mindless media gang-bang to which he was subjected ("Don't Quote Me," News and Features, August 27, 1999).

On the other hand, there's the Gore-should-never-have-stopped-toking position, not often heard in mainstream circles but articulated ably in an essay by Don Hazen, head of AlterNet, the news service of the alternative press. Hazen's piece, posted on the AlterNet Web site, was accompanied by this hype: "Lacking a sex scandal, this is the kind of issue the media may sink its teeth into, like a stubborn bull dog. And unfortunately we'll all be the worse for it." Hazen's piece, though, was less a rumination on the media than a defense of pot-smoking in general. "Al Gore stoned. The woodenness becomes fluid, the shoulders relax, the man is more comfortable in his body. The fear of Dutch elm disease recedes," Hazen wrote. "All and all an improvement, don't you think?"

Hazen goes on to make an important point: the hypocrisy of Gore's enthusiastic support for the war on drugs. Indeed, what's most striking about the drug allegations regarding Gore and Bush is not whether they are true. Rather, it's that both men have been accused of doing something that could land them in prison today because of policies they support.