DO POLITICIANS GET MUCH LOWER? – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  You know that a liberal icon is in deep trouble, at least in terms of reputation, when even The New York Times runs a negative piece about him.  This morning's Times knifes Al Gore for Gore's breathtaking act of prostitution in selling his Current TV channel to the anti-American, anti-woman, anti-Israel Al Jazeera, which is owned by a foreign dictatorship awash in polluting oil:

Al Gore’s Current TV was never popular with viewers, but it was a hit where it counted: with cable and satellite providers. When he co-founded the channel in 2005, Mr. Gore managed to get the channel piped into tens of millions of households — a huge number for an untested network — through a combination of personal lobbying and arm-twisting of industry giants.

He called on those skills again after deciding in December to sell Current TV to Al Jazeera for $500 million. To preserve the deal — and the estimated $100 million he would personally receive — he went to some of those same distributors, who were looking for an excuse to drop the low-rated channel, and reminded them that their contracts with Current TV called it a news channel. Were the distributors going to say that an American version of Al Jazeera didn’t qualify, possibly invoking ugly stereotypes of the Middle Eastern news giant?

Stereotypes?  Or the truth?

Television executives and observers were surprised by both the big price tag and the decision by Mr. Gore, one of the best-known proponents for action to combat global warming, to sell to a Middle Eastern monarchy built with oil wealth.

The headline on a FoxNews.com op-ed on Thursday was “Global warming guru Al Gore becomes rich hypocrite with sale of Current TV to Qatar, Inc.” Several analysts said that Al Jazeera overpaid for Current.

“The deep-pocketed Qatari royal family backing Al Jazeera handily outbid any other bidder’s rational bid,” the research firm PrivCo said in a note to clients.

COMMENT:  At one time Gore was a man of some promise.  A moderate Democrat, effective at "reinventing government" as vice president under Bill Clinton, he seemed to go crazy after losing the 2000 election.  At the 2000 Dem convention he made a huge display of affection for his wife, Tipper, clearly trying to distinguish himself from the womanizing Clinton.  Later the two separated.

And Gore went on an environmental kick, "winning" a Nobel Peace Prize for the highly propagandistic "An Inconvenient Truth," about so-called global warming.  But we've learned that Gore has made a fortune on the issue, and now has mansions all over the country.  The inconvenient truth turns out to be far less truthful than advertised.

Now Gore, who put the first Jew on a national ticket (Joseph Lieberman) sells his soul to the Qatari royal family, which backs the Jew-hating Hamas.

As they say, "My, how the mighty have fallen."  I do think this finishes Al Gore as a public figure, except among the die-hard global warmers.  What can be said in his defense?

January 4,  2013