Playing at politics, gaming for love

Today Al Gore returns to Capitol Hill to testify on the dangers of global warming.

What a comeback-one that was impossible to predict seven years ago! If you are a Gore fan, you remember the agonizing days after the 2000 election, when the vote count swung back and forth between him and now President Bush. At the end, when the Supreme Court had decided the election, Gore conceded and turned his back on DC world. Now he's going to be preaching to the already converted in a Congress controlled by his party-the party that spent seven years in the doghouse.

In spite of the alleged size of his heating bill back in Nashville, though he probably did exaggerate (slightly) the size of the global warming horrors to come, I'm fond of our former Veep.

Idolized by millions (and probably disliked by almost as many) for his campaign to publicize the reality of global warming, he has oddly become a celebrity and a very wealthy guy.

Is he going to run for President? He says not....yet a lot of people already burned out on the current crop of campaigners are hoping Gore will enter the race. But as one of his friends commented-he's got to decide whether he's going to be a President or a prophet. When it comes to Presidential politics, you really can't do both.

As one scientist said on the radio this morning, Gore has been laboring in these vineyards for many years, long before most of us were paying attention. Although he occasionally irks me with his slightly sanctimonious style, I remember the years he truly was an environmental prophet beloved solely by liberal fringers...and don't begrudge him his fame.

That being said, it seems to me that it is easier being an observer, a member of the chattering classes, than a participant. Safer. Less trying. If you have any spunk, it's not a place where you are content.

I know whereof I speak.

For I am an inveterate observer, slow to put my guard down, giving the appearance of openness but protecting that most precious to me. I've been burned enough to find the background a more comfortable spot.

Yet underneath my poise there is a fierce loyalty to friends and family, a white hot heat that rarely gives up or gives in when someone I care about is in trouble or needs help.

I have to remind myself, as perhaps I would like to remind Mr. Gore, that there are no actuarial tables on winning, or on losing in politics...or in love.

You either get in the game or stand on the sidelines, wishing you had enough chutzpah to put all you have, and are, on the field, for better or for worse.

Or maybe it's for worse...or for better?