GORE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: MAY CAUSE FALLACIOUS THINKING

I am phenomenally excited that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not that I think he's all that great; I just love watching the right-wing media have a collective aneurysm over it. Honestly, has anyone really benefited more from this decision that Limbaugh and Hannity? Just think of the hours of pissing/moaning fodder this has created.

Gore has finally ascended into the Clinton-Ted Kennedy-Streisand category of people whose very names make conservatives froth at the mouth. So kudos for that, Al. Just look at what Gore's shiny prize did to the brilliant mind of Iain Kennedy. Blinded by rage, the best this mental infant could do was a banal Guilt by Association fallacy:

Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance – and that of the Nobel committee – in his September rant from the cave.

I've tried to take in as little of it as possible, but the "This is such a travesty" shit-fits seem to focus largely on three amazingly easy-to-disassemble points.

  • 1. "Other people are far more deserving than Gore" – One who uses this argument should probably be prepared to list some examples, no? The outstanding journalists over at Fox & Friends discussed the Great Wrongs of the Nobel committee and then helpfully offered an alternative. It's….wait for it…..hold……hooooooooooold……General/Saint David Petraeus! (Insert comedic sound effect here)
  • 2. "The Nobel Peace Prize is a joke/has no credibility" – What was your first fucking clue, when Kissinger won one? Or was it Arafat?
  • 3. "They're making a political statement with the award" – This is something new, according to right wingers. Apparently the Nobel folks weren't playing politics in the past when they did things like give Lech Walesa (1983), Albert Lutuli (1960) or Desmond Tutu (1984) the award. Nope, no conceivable way those could be construed as an effort to send a political message.

    In short, the Gore/Nobel "controversy" is a lobbed softball that plays directly into what the right wing does best in America: bitch. Bitching, bitching, and more bitching about the innumerable and egregious wrongs inflicted on wealthy, suburban white men by effete Euro-intellectual types. And the media. Oh, that liberal media.