Al Gore believes that the world is going to come an end in less than five years. Over the years, he professes to attempt to solve the “problem” of reducing the earth’s “carbon footprint” by expending plenty of carbon himself, with first a movie, and then a rock concert, and eventually a TV channel. He demands that the rest of us change our lifestyle to suit his worldview, but publicly vows not to change his, Al lives in a mansion, flies around in a private plane, and, this, along with his various business ventures, gives him an overall carbon footprint the size of well, one giant Manbearpig. Or as Ann Coulter once quipped, “I kind of respect [Al] more, it shows he is not stupid enough to believe all this global warming nonsense. He’s trying to get us to believe. Okay, fine, he may be a hypocrite but at least he’s not a moron.”
But that’s Coulter; Al’s long been a punchline for all of us on the right. Centrist blogger Ann Althouse piles on, adding, “Al Jazeera hands Al Gore the second-chakra-releasing sum of $100 million.” But at what point does Al become a joke among liberal late-night comedians? Ace notes that the prominent socialist sold his business at the end of 2012 to avoid paying higher tax rates:
Al Gore tried to hurry up the sale so he could avoid the increased taxes beginning January 1st. Lot of interesting stories the media has no interest in, eh? The media justifies its intense coverage of Republican sexual affairs on grounds that they evidence hypocrisy, and so are more important than the affair itself; but when Al Gore tries to avoid the higher tax rates he agitates for, it’s a single sentence in dispatch.
And then there’s the hypocrisy of the world’s most visible environmentalist having sold out his pet cause to Eeeeeevil Big Oil. (A Forbes article from 2007 asked rather presciently in retrospect, “Is Al Gore A Fossil-Fuel Industry Mole?”) Or as John Nolte memorably puts it at Big Journalism today, “Al Gore Race-Baits $100 Million from 21st Century Axis Sally:”
Al Jazeera is an anti-Semitic, anti-American scourge throughout the Middle East, and it was one of our biggest enemies during the darkest days of the wars in Iraq an Afghanistan. But in order to secure $100 million he doesn’t need, Gore threatened to accuse providers of racism if they dared drop the channel, which would’ve most certainly resulted in a lower selling price.
Imagine a former United States’ vice president giving Axis Sally a platform just after the end WWII and threatening a radio or television network if they refused to hand over their airwaves as a platform for her. [If the Axis Sally allusion seems to over-the-top, “Imagine if LBJ had sold his wife’s station to the Viet Cong’s ‘Liberation Radio,’ Kathy Shaidle* writes today — Ed]
That’s exactly what Al Gore’s done — all in the name of tolerance.
You see, we have to tolerate hate and intolerance directed towards America and Israel, in the name of diversity. But what will not be tolerated is intolerance of Al-Jazeera’s hate and intolerance, because not tolerating hate and intolerance directed towards America and Israel is its own form of hate and intolerance.
Got that?
Yes, with an assist from a vintage Mark Steyn article, we’ll discuss that right after the page break.
John Nolte writes, “But what will not be tolerated is intolerance of Al-Jazeera’s hate and intolerance, because not tolerating hate and intolerance directed towards America and Israel is its own form of hate and intolerance.”
That’s a topic that Mark Steyn explored back in 2005, when he wrote, “Anyone can be tolerant of the tolerant, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti- masochists:”
I underestimated multiculturalism. After 9/11, I assumed the internal contradictions of the rainbow coalition would be made plain: that a cult of “tolerance” would in the end founder against a demographic so cheerfully upfront in their intolerance. Instead, Islamic “militants” have become the highest repository of multicultural pieties. So you’re nice about gays and Native Americans? Big deal. Anyone can be tolerant of the tolerant, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti- masochists. And so Islamists who murder non-Muslims in pursuit of explicitly Islamic goals are airbrushed into vague, generic “rebel forces.” You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, and that’s just the way the Western media intend to keep it. If you wake up one morning and switch on the TV to see the Empire State Building crumbling to dust, don’t be surprised if the announcer goes, “Insurging rebel militant forces today attacked key targets in New York. In other news, the president’s annual Ramadan banquet** saw celebrities dancing into the small hours to Mullah Omar And His All-Girl Orchestra . . .”
But then, as fellow PJM Columnist Barry Rubin tells the Daily Caller today, sanity left the skyscraper a decade ago:
Rubin said Al-Jazeera is a “radical media outlet run by people who are anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-Western.” (RELATED: Gore reportedly hoped to sell Current TV before fiscal cliff tax hikes)
“[I]t is an instrument of extremist revolutionary movements,” he added. “On a number of occasions it has lent itself to promote and be used by violent terrorist groups.”
Rubin said by lending his imprimatur to Al-Jazeera – and potentially personally reaping a sum of $100 million, according to reports — Gore is acting “disgracefully.”
“In former, sane, times, doing something like this would have finished Gore’s credibility forever,” Rubin said. “Needless to say, sanity has long since jumped out the window.”
Heh — though as a famous British hotelier likes to say, nobody mention the war.
* Incidentally, speaking of punching back against those with a tolerance of multicultural intolerance, Kathy and her husband could use your help.
** Speaking of prescience.
Related: We followed up the American left’s tolerance of the intolerance in a post titled The Al Jazeera Liberals, and spot Stacy McCain half-seriously wanting to know where he can get $100 mill of sweet second chakra-enhancing funds of his own. Or as we paraphrased: Can You Spare Some Qatar, Me Brothers?
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