Yet another Gore smear

[VayaConDios]

In another thread, JackWhite wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
Are we allowed to hold his speech at the 1996 DNC Convention against him? The one where he gave a tear-jerking speech detailing how his sister's death from cancer turned him into an anti-tobacco zealot? Of course, years after his sister's death he was still taking tobacco money and bragging that his family had grown tobacco. I certainly hold that against him.


[/ QUOTE ]

Shockingly, Gore said nothing of the sort. The pertinent portion of his speech was:

[ QUOTE ]

Some of the most powerful forces that do the most harm are often hard to see and even harder to understand. When I was a child, my family was attacked by an invisible force that was then considered harmless. My sister Nancy was older than me. There were only the two of us and I loved her more than life itself. She started smoking when she was 13 years old. The connection between smoking and lung cancer had not yet been established but years later the cigarettes had taken their toll.

It hurt very badly to watch her savaged by that terrible disease. Her husband, Frank, and all of us who loved her so much, tried to get her to stop smoking. Of course she should have, but she couldn't.

When she was 45, she had a lung removed. A year later, the disease had come back and she returned to the hospital. We all took turns staying with her. One day I was called to come quickly because things had taken a turn for the worse.

By then, her pain was nearly unbearable, and as a result, they used very powerful painkillers. And eventually it got so bad they had to use such heavy doses that she could barely retain consciousness. We sometimes didn't know if she could hear what we were saying or recognize us.

But when I responded to that call and walked into the hospital room that day, as soon as I turned the corner - someone said, "Al's here" - she looked up, and from out of that haze her eyes focused intensely right at me. She couldn't speak, but I felt clearly I knew she was forming a question: "Do you bring me hope?"

All of us had tried to find whatever new treatment or new approach might help, but all I could do was to say back to her with all the gentleness in my heart, "I love you." And then I knelt by her bed and held her hand. And in a very short time her breathing became labored and then she breathed her last breath.

Tomorrow morning another 13-year-old girl will start smoking. I love her, too. Three thousand young people in America will start smoking tomorrow. One thousand of them will die a death not unlike my sister's, and that is why, until I draw my last breath, I will pour my heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking.

And that is also why I was intensely proud last week when President Clinton stood up for American families by standing up to tobacco advertising aimed at getting our children addicted. He proposed- he proposed the first-ever comprehensive plan to protect children from smoking; to ban tobacco advertising aimed at our children, and to ban it for good.

It took courage for Bill Clinton to take on the tobacco companies. I promise you it is no accident that no president has ever been willing to do it before.


[/ QUOTE ]

Where does Gore say anything about not taking money from tobacco companies? Maybe Gore thinks that adults should be able to purchase tobacco products, but that they shouldn't be advertised to children. But of course that doesn't fit neatly into the talking points. Thanks for repeating yet another distortion from the neocon echo chamber.

[xorbie]

You do realize that it's still really sleazy for Gore to take money from them, right?

[Edge34]

VCD,

If you seriously don't see how one could presume that a prominent politician's public VOW to be anti-tobacco (or at the very least anti-underage-smoking) would lead to them not taking tobacco money, then you're not very clear on these things.

Of course, its easy to spew cliches about the "neocon echo chamber" without actually going any farther than the specific words in one speech. That would actually require some work on your part, now wouldn't it?

Just to make it a little easier for you to understand, I did some of the work for you...look at definition #2...

[ QUOTE ]
hypocrite
One entry found.

hypocrite

Main Entry:
hyp·o·crite Listen to the pronunciation of hypocrite

Function:
noun

Date:
13th century

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

[/ QUOTE ]


Also, VCD, nice unmarked edit to talk about how maybe he was talking about the children. It doesn't seem unreasonable at all to assume someone wouldn't want money from the industry he blames his sister's death on, does it? Seriously?

Keep talking about that neocon echo chamber and ignoring someone's points.

[JayTee]

Damn cigarette commercials interrupting my Saturday cartoons.

[VayaConDios]

[ QUOTE ]
You do realize that it's still really sleazy for Gore to take money from them, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all, I have no idea whether and to what extent Gore has taken money from tobacco companies. I'm guessing that big tobacco is like most other industries and spreads around money to candidates on both sides of the aisle. I'm also guessing that Gore, like the other candidates, is not in the habit of sending back sizable checks that he receives. While I disagree with many of the things that tobacco companies have done in the past, I hardly find it somehow inherently sleazy for him to accept campaign contributions from them.

[Edge34]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You do realize that it's still really sleazy for Gore to take money from them, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all, I have no idea whether and to what extent Gore has taken money from tobacco companies. I'm guessing that big tobacco is like most other industries and spreads around money to candidates on both sides of the aisle. I'm also guessing that Gore, like the other candidates, is not in the habit of sending back sizable checks that he receives. While I disagree with many of the things that tobacco companies have done in the past, I hardly find it somehow inherently sleazy for him to accept campaign contributions from them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Step 1) Go out and bash the entire tobacco industry, describing just how hard it was to watch their product KILL YOUR SISTER OF CANCER.

Step 2) Gain political support from sob story.

Step 3) Continue accepting contributions from an industry that killed your sister, that you will work against "until you draw your last breath".

Step 4) ???????

Step 5) Profit and hope all that sob-story BS gets you elected President.


Seriously, VCD, I hope to whatever form of God you do or don't believe in that you aren't so dense to see the inherent hypocrisy in this whole thing, if he has been taking money from big tobacco.

[VayaConDios]

[ QUOTE ]
VCD,

If you seriously don't see how one could presume that a prominent politician's public VOW to be anti-tobacco (or at the very least anti-underage-smoking) would lead to them not taking tobacco money, then you're not very clear on these things.

Of course, its easy to spew cliches about the "neocon echo chamber" without actually going any farther than the specific words in one speech. That would actually require some work on your part, now wouldn't it?

Just to make it a little easier for you to understand, I did some of the work for you...look at definition #2...

[ QUOTE ]
hypocrite
One entry found.

hypocrite

Main Entry:
hyp·o·crite Listen to the pronunciation of hypocrite

Function:
noun

Date:
13th century

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

[/ QUOTE ]


Also, VCD, nice unmarked edit to talk about how maybe he was talking about the children. It doesn't seem unreasonable at all to assume someone wouldn't want money from the industry he blames his sister's death on, does it? Seriously?

Keep talking about that neocon echo chamber and ignoring someone's points.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is in no way inconsistent for someone to be against advertising tobacco to teens and not yet be against the whole industries. I guess if you're against four year olds having a beer after daycare then you have to be against adults drinking too, or else you're a hypocrite.

[bdk3clash]

Also "discussed" in this thread from a while back.

Why can't everyone just recognize the patently obvious narrative truths about political candidates that the media so thoughtfully hammers home? You know, the narratives that really get to the core of important issues and drive campaign coverage: Gore is a serial exaggerator, Bush is a likable guy you'd want to have a beer with, Clinton is shrill, Obama is too inexperienced and prone to "slip-ups," Thompson looks presidential and is Reaganesque, Giuliani is tough on the terrorists waging war on us, Romney is a Mormon, and Edwards is effeminate and has too much money to really care about poor people.

And don't get me started on those "fringe" types like Kucinich and Paul. They're really not even worth discussing, except to laugh at how unserious they are.

[ikestoys]

lol you didn't refute the "smear" at all. you just confirmed it happened and tried to rationalize it.

Gore: YOU KILLED MY SISTA (sob)
Tobacco: Here, take a few gs
Gore: Thank you

[Edge34]

VCD,

Whatever you think his meaning was, there's no doubt he was trying to gain political capital by telling everyone how terrible it was that his sister died of cancer from tobacco.

Now, logically following from that, continuing to take money from a company that continues to kill "one thousand of the 3 thousand kids that will start smoking tomorrow" seems at the very least a BIT hypocritical. That's all I'm saying, and that's what you seem to completely misunderstand. Of course, it must just be that damned neocon echo chamber expecting at least SOME consistency from that whole anti-tobacco speech.