Goring Al

In the recent somnambulistic primaries, the plodding Bradley drew blood from an unexpected flank: Gore's reputation as an honest broker. Bradley exposed Gore as a political transvestite, a lifelong conservative Democrat, who only adopts the mantle of liberalism when it's convenient (such as in Democratic primaries). He reeled off a litany of Gore flip-flops on abortion, gun control, tobacco, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, affirmative action, welfare reform, and civil rights. This was, Bradley tried to remind people, the man who in his 1988 campaign race-baited Jesse Jackson and first raised the specter of Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis.

Many observers were caught off-guard when Bradley also ridiculed Gore's reputation as an environmentalist. The corporate press snickered. "Attacking Gore on the environment is like questioning Mother Teresa's faith," said Jonathan Alter, Newsweek's chief talking head on the cable news shows.

In the 1992 campaign, Gore used the environment as a sledgehammer against Bush and Quayle. One issue raised over and over was the WTI hazardous waste incinerator slated for East Liverpool, Ohio, which Gore vowed to block. But within weeks of taking office, the EPA, run by Gore's former staffer, Carol Browner, reversed course and issued the permit to the toxic plant. This was a sign of things to come. It was swiftly followed by capitulations on The Everglades, ancient forests, fuel efficiency standards, pesticides in foods, wetland protection, oil development in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, subsidies for nuclear power, organic food standards, and ozone-depleting chemicals.

Connoisseurs of Gore's career aren't shocked by any of this. His voting record on environmental matters during his tenure in the House and Senate was mediocre by any standard. Gore, ever ready with an excuse, puts the blame on his home state of Tennessee, which he suggests is retrograde in environmental matters. But the people who know Gore best say he was rarely if ever there for them on pressing matters on the homefront, ranging from strip mining to radioactive contamination at Oak Ridge International. "More often than not Al Gore sided with the polluters against the people," said Maddy Cochrane, a longtime environmental organizer in Chattanooga. "We came to learn that he just followed the money."

When confronted with the zigzagging pattern of his positions on these matters, Gore becomes petulant. Moments after he learned that Friends of the Earth had endorsed Bradley, Gore was on the phone to the CEOs of the other big green groups, claiming that he had been personally hurt by the decision. The ploy largely worked. Within days executives from the Sierra Club and NRDC issued statements vouching for Gore's green bona fides and chiding Friends of the Earth for its political heterodoxy.

The move by the big groups to provide cover for Gore dismays America's premier green, David Brower. "Environmentalists and progressives cannot endorse rhetoric, and that's the greenest thing we have seen from the Vice President," says Brower, chairman of Earth Island Institute. "I first thought that he was just keeping bad company. So I created the bumpersticker `Free Al Gore!' and even got him delivered a sweatshirt with the slogan on it. But things have gotten worse since then and the Clinton-Gore Administration even seems to have fumbled the ball on an issue as non-controversial as offshore oil drilling."

Gore hopes to pin the responsibility for the lame record of the last eight years on Clinton. But it won't sell. Clinton was indifferent to environmental issues and gave Gore free rein on green matters. In large measure, Gore's people were tapped to fill the key environmental posts. Aside from Browner, Katie McGinty, another Gore senate aide, headed the powerful Council on Environmental Quality until last year. Former Gore staffers were also at the Department of Energy, the Commerce Department, and the Office of Management and Budget. Gore intimate Tim Wirth, the former senator from Colorado, served as Assistant Secretary of State for the Environment, where he spearheaded the outrageous move to loosen protections for dolphins from industrial tuna-fishing fleets. Then there's George Frampton, who became Assistant Secretary of Interior, resigned in 1997, served for a year as Gore's lawyer during the campaign finance scandal, then went back to work in the administration in McGinty's old position at the CEQ. The Gore team ran the show from the beginning.

The vice president himself has been caught red-handed on several occasions going to bat for corporations against the interests of environmentalists. A little reported example is Gore's fervent efforts on behalf of Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical giant. The vice president made a series of forceful calls to heads of state, including the presidents of Ireland and France, stressing his opposition to moves by the European Union to ban import of genetically engineered seeds and food products.

The lesson of Al Gore's political career is that he is an ideologue. He gravitates toward the side that offers him the greatest advantage. Now that Bradley has been vanquished and the key progressive constituencies already sewn up, Gore will start his natural migration back to the right, stiff-arming blacks, working people, and greens. By the time he gets to LA in August, he'll be reading from the DLC pro-business playbook once again.

The environmentalists could throw a monkey-wrench in Gore's plans by massing their support behind Ralph Nader's run on the Green Party ticket and making clear that they did so mainly because Gore was AWOL on the environment when it counted most. Nader won't win, but he could garner just enough votes to make Gore lose key states, such as California, New York, and Washington. Inflicting this kind of political pain is the only sure way to get the Democrats' (and Republicans') attention and redeem the credibility of the environmental movement.

As Brower said: "It's time to start standing up for what we stand on."