NOV. 19, 2002: GORE SPEAKS
by David Frum
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary111902.asp
Scary Republicans: ABC’s excellent news blog, The Note yesterday had an interesting out-take from the Gore family’s interview with Barbara Walters that was broadcast on Friday.
WALTERS: I'm not sure that people realize that while you were in the residence of the Vice President [during the Florida recount] there were crowds of people outside screaming at you. What was that all about?
AL GORE: Well, this was the Republican response to what was happening during that 36-day period, and they organized busloads of people that came and stood outside the house all day and all night screaming at the top of their lungs.
WALTERS: What, "Get out!"?
TIPPER GORE: Things like that, yes, and, and sometimes … things that we don't want to say on your program, and, some people saw that they were buses from "churches," but it was organized. The one thing that, that they did mainly was reach the bedrooms of our children, and Albert was still in school locally, and trying to study, so we rearranged, you know, they … kids moved to a different part of the house, and I was trying to think of a way that we could kind of laugh about this since obviously it was out of our control, there wasn't anything anybody could do so I got all the boom boxes in the house and … I remember sort of what the government did with Noriega … I thought we'd try that, and I aimed them at, toward, you know, where the crowd …
WALTERS: The crowd?
TIPPER GORE: … And I put nature sounds on and turned it all the way up. And at least the kids laughed.
AL GORE: There were a few, more than a few who supported us and were offended by the organized chanting round the clock who came out on the other street corner during the day to express their support with signs, and … You know, emotions were running high throughout the country and it was just an unprecedented time.
KARENNA GORE: Well, when we were in the Vice President's house during the recount, it was it was very intense. And one of the things I remember is that there was a … an organized effort by, I don't know whether it was the RNC or it was … it was right-wing groups, it was definitely Bush-campaign-oriented effort to bus in people to have a sort of siege at the Vice President's house, and, so, they were all lining there, screaming, and it was kind of an assortment of groups. I mean, some of them were anti, um, were anti-abortion groups, and some of them were pro-gun groups, and some of them … they all had their different signs. But they were all screaming, "Get out of Cheney's house," the whole time. And I just remember being there next to my dad, because I went for a run, and I ran back through them, and I was very upset when I came into the house. And my whole attitude was, like, "We've got to fight back harder. And where are our crowds?" And my dad, I'll never forget his response. He said, "We have to do what's best for the country, and it is not good for the country to have this kind of divisiveness. And he was on the phone, really calling off the dogs. There were people who wanted to fan the … the flames of the racial issue and have real unrest. And he was on the phone asking them not to, because of what was best for the country not because of what was best for him politically. And that's really who he is.
WALTERS: Do you remember the crowds outside screaming?
KRISTEN GORE: The crowds that were screaming outside our house, you know, "Get out of Cheney's house." And other things … of that nature, were really upsetting. It was difficult … It was just very … upsetting that someone would … yell those things at us. It felt … we felt sort of like … trapped in this … you know, little house with all these people yelling mean things. It's no fun. You know, whether you're a child of the person who they're directed at, or anyone else. It … it wasn't a good situation.
WALTERS: Were you scared?
KRISTEN GORE: I was scared that the truth was not going to come out. That's what I was.
**
Emotions ran high during the Florida recount and I can understand that the Gores might be distressed by having protesters assemble under their windows. On the other hand, their description of those protests is a little – what’s the word we kept using during the campaign? – hyperbolic.
My family attended the protests Gore complains of. (My Labrador retriever was even photographed by a wire service reporter impressed by Cobber’s “Dogs for Bush” sandwich board.) On the day we showed up, the crowd numbered perhaps 50 people; about a dozen Gore supporters assembled a block away. They did indeed chant “Get Out of Cheney’s House” and wave placards and urge commuters to honk – but they did not scream and it would be absurd to describe them as in any way threatening. Some of them were no doubt a little eccentric, but the median age of the group was about 45, and they dutifully obeyed the police barricades that confined them to the sidewalks on the east side of Massachusetts Avenue, at least 200 yards from the vice president’s house on the west side.
One protester carried a megaphone – and I’ll concede that he made more noise than he should have. But as for the rest, I’m left wondering why it is that when 100,000 people march around the White House to oppose military action in Iraq they are exercising their constitutionally protected right of peaceful protest – while when four dozen Republicans demurely exercise their rights, they can be described without demur on national television as if they were a mob of violent maniacs.
Correction: Bob Woodward’s 1991 book about the Gulf War was titled The Commanders not The Generals. I apologize for the error in yesterday’s blog.
01:08 AM
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I don't think Al Gore likes Free Republic's Washington Chapter. :lol:
