Reply #61: No, Gore is NOT talking about this event on or off the record AT ALL.

[AlGore-08.com]

Because he doesn't want to turn a private act of charity into a photo op. It's been because of grassroots supporters that this story has gotten out at all.

I've been following and promoting the story since it broke, the day before Gore made the flights. It was first mentioned in passing on the 9/2/05 edition of Washington Week In Review. They were discussing the ridiculous amount of red tape that volunteers had to go through to help out Katrina victims, and Alexis Simendinger mentioned as a total aside even Al Gore was having trouble getting through the red tape. Nobody cared enough to follow up and ask what was Gore doing or did he ever get clearance?

The next day, Sat. 9/3/05, a Fox News cameraman saw Gore inside the New Orleans airport, and photographed him. Fox News asked for an interview and Gore refused them. CNN put it on their crawler that Gore was in NOLA to fly victims to Tennessee, but neither news org reported any details (such as the fact that the flight would land in Knoxville).

I and other bloggers started talking about this story that day, Sat. 9/3/05, even though there were very few details available.

There was no coverage in the national media the following day (Sunday 9/4/5) when Gore returned to NOLA and airlifted the second group of Katrina victims to Chattanooga.

There were a very few local stories about Gore's efforts in the Tennessee papers between Saturday 9/3/05 and Friday, Sept. 9/9/05. None of them had much information, other than the fact that Gore was involved somehow in these flights and that he refused to be interviewed about them.

Roger Simon's piece appeared on the TPM Cafe site Wednesday, 9/7/05. There was no reaction by the media, but bloggers like me posted the story around the left side of the web.

Gore gave two speeches about Global Warming in Portland on Tuesday, 9/6/05. There was some coverage of Gore's speech by the local media and more by bloggers. None of it mentioned Gore's airlifts to NOLA (which they would have done, if Gore spoke about them, because they do get people talking).

On Friday, 9/9/05, - - a week after the story broke - - Gore gave a speech on global warming to the first annual Sierra Club conference. Gore was added to the roster at the last minute. The MSM included coverage of Gore's flights to NOLA in their coverage of his speech, but Gore and Simon both refused to be interviewed about it.

My guess about why it took the MSM a week to cover Gore's effort is because Gore's late addition to the Sierra Club speakers' list looked "political" to them. They suspected that Gore might be upping his public profile to start positioning himself for a 2008 run. Only when Gore changed from a private citizen to a politician in their eyes was Gore's private act of charity seen as newsworthy.

Gore is still not discussing this publicly. I was at a taping of his global warming presentation this weekend, and he spoke about Katrina, and did not even hint that he had done anything at all in response. He came back after the taping to chat with the audience and let his hair down a little, but still said nothing about these flights.

Gore doesn't take credit for a lot of the things that he has done to help individual citizens. Gore took a personal interest in the brain damaged son of my best friend, who needed round the clock nursing care to stay alive. When the insurance company tried to dump their coverage, they had nowhere to turn, and in desperation, they wrote every major public official they could think of. Gore was the only one who responded. He didn't know my friend from a hole in the ground, but Gore called in the media and got them to embarrass the insurance company into maintaining the coverage.

Gore never took credit for his role in keeping the coverage intact, even when he was in office, even when he was on the campaign trail. Gore has continued to take an interest in the family and visits every time he is in their area. My best friend's entire family will tell you that Al Gore saved their son's life, but Al Gore won't tell you. Ever.