The Bonus Book of the Week is “Inventing Al Gore, A Biography” by Bill Turque, published in 2000.
Gore was born in 1948 in Washington, D.C. into a family of economic royalists originally from Tennessee. He had a decade-older sister, and built a political career like his senator-father. After graduating from Harvard in spring 1969 during a raging Vietnam War, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he was assigned to be a journalist. Stationed in Alabama, his job was to spread war propaganda on alleged war heroes.
There was a good chance he wouldn’t have seen combat, but there was anecdotal evidence that he had General William Westmoreland pull strings for him to stay safe anyway. Draft-dodging would have hurt his anti-war father’s chances for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1970. His father lost, regardless.
In early 1971, finally having been granted his request to go to Vietnam to dispel vicious rumors, Gore served less than five months there in a non-combat capacity. He had post-traumatic stress disorder when he came back. He turned toward religion– traditional Baptism and New Age spiritualism, and environmentalism.
The author’s account was murky on exactly how Gore could possibly attend classes in a special one-year divinity school program, be a full-time reporter (working long hours) for the “Tennessean” newspaper, assist his father with a home-building business on the weekends, and socialize with family and friends– all simultaneously for a year and a half (!)
In mid-April 1987, Gore jumped into the race for president. It may be recalled that in the following month, candidate Gary Hart was forced out of the race after busybodies exposed his marital infidelity. That was the election season when the New York Times‘ nosiness reached new heights with all the presidential candidates.
From 1993 to 1994, Gore was an active participant in president Bill Clinton’s “… solid accomplishments like deficit reduction, NAFTA, FMLA, and the Earned Income Tax Credit…” However, other controversial issues reared their ugly heads, such as “… gays in the military, the leviathan health care package…” Of course, political enemies constantly needled Clinton with his every professional and personal misstep.
Nevertheless, during his presidency, Clinton attacked major issues. It appears that the U.S. government has yet to take major, major action in connection with decades-old, explosive issues– such as illegal immigration and illegal-gun control– for economic and/or political reasons. Yet it has taken major, major action on, say, abortion (with Roe. v. Wade), civil rights, women’s suffrage, and Prohibition– for ideological and/or religious reasons; it hasn’t been for the money. Healthcare and education are too broad, fragmented and complex to generalize about one way or the other.
Nonetheless, read the book to learn additional tabloidy details about Gore’s life and times.