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Overview
Why did Al Gore, after angry opposition to the Vietnam War, submit to the draft? What happened in Vietnam that made him sullen and bitter? After renouncing politics, what set him back on the track mapped out for him? What made him claim (falsely) that he invented the Internet? How closely is he allied with the tobacco industry? What is the real nature of his partnership with Bill Clinton? How was it altered by the Lewinsky affair? INVENTING AL GORE addresses these issues and more as it unveils the true motivations, ideals, and idiosyncracies of one of Washington's most inscrutable men. Bill Turque, who covered both of Gore's vice presidential campaigns and the Clinton White House, draws on extensive access to Gore's key advisers, friends, and family. He unmasks a man who in private can sing and dance to George Strait's music but in public measures every comment and gesture with legendary caution. As Turque details, Gore's great political albatross—a lack of empathy—was hatched during his lonely childhood as the product of ambitious political parents who groomed him for the presidency. Turque's keen analysis also uncovers the genesis of Gore's questionable fund-raising and of a political platform laden with worthy but emotionally safe planks such as bioethics, global warming, and the Internet. In addition, Inventing Al Gore illuminates how personal tragedies have shaped his political life and the remarkable influence that women, from his mother to Naomi Wolf, have had on his career.
INVENTING AL GORE reveals Gore to be one of the most intelligent, idealistic men in Washington, yet one who is repeatedly prone to prevarication, exaggeration, and avoidance of hard issues. Turque offers a meticulously researched narrative filled with colorful, insightful details that sharpen the debate over whether Gore can outgrow his limitations and excel in the office he has prepared for all his life.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Veteran Newsweek journalist Turque has produced a marvel of reporting--a dispassionate election-year biography without an agenda. In contrast to last year's fiercely partisan Gore: A Political Life by conservative pundit Bob Zelnick, Turque's book offers a balanced, insightful critique of the man who seems to have been groomed for the presidency from birth. ("We raised him for it!" Gore's father, a former U.S. senator, exulted in 1992 when he learned his son was headed for the White House as vice-president.) Turque shows how the pressure to succeed has shaped virtually every aspect of Gore's career--from his decision to volunteer for service in Vietnam to his "Faustian bargain" with Clinton in 1992. The same ambition, Turque believes, has also led to Gore's most embarrassing missteps, including the 1996 fundraising scandals and his preposterous claim that he invented the Internet. The focus throughout the book is on Gore's record, although Turque can't resist a few speculations about the characteristics of a possible Gore presidency: Gore, the author predicts, would be a vigorous, high-minded executive, prone to techno-evangelism and moral exactitude; he would also tend to be ideologically inconsistent and politically tone-deaf. Sharply written and well researched, Turque's book laudably refuses to dismiss Gore as either a wooden caricature or the country's most famous beta male. It depicts him as a complex individual capable of both stalwart leadership, as when he stiffened Clinton's spine during the 1995 budget fight with Gingrich, and callous exploitation, as when he went against the wishes of his environmental constituency to aid a polluting paper mill during his 1988 campaign for president. This biography should be indispensable reading for anyone wishing to make an informed decision in the 2000 election. First serial to Newsweek. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Michael Tomasky
What Turque has done is probe the conflict between the public and private man with a subtlety and decency we don't often see these days.—The New York Times Book Review