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I had a hard time trying to follow last week's ruckus among Episcopal Church leaders over whether to make a bishop out of an openly gay priest. Too many political interruptions - Arnold Schwarzenegger is out, then suddenly he's in; Al Gore is back but not in; a prominent Democrat dissed his party's presidential candidates, saying all he hears from them is a lot of "babble."
It's not that the church story lacked drama - last-minute allegations of "inappropriate touching" against the bishop candidate, Gene Robinson; the sight of Robinson's opponents weeping and praying and smearing ash on their foreheads and warning of a major schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The fact is that politics is nearly always more interesting than religion, except when the two are mixed, and that feuding Democrats are better entertainment than feuding Episcopalians.
The California Recall Campaign starring Arnold Schwarzenegger easily trumped gay bishops and presidential politics for news and entertainment. The news was the Republican actor and Kennedy in-law changed his mind and jumped into the race for governor; the entertainment was that he announced his surprise candidacy on - where else? - The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Arnold stole the show, and Democrats now worry that he may steal home plate from Gov. Gray Davis, the object of the recall.
Democrats, meanwhile, are as divided over who should carry their party's presidential banner next year as the Episcopalians are over homosexuality. The torn Episcopalians prayed for God's intercession, and some unhappy Democrats pleaded for Al Gore's intervention. Their prayers and pleas went unanswered.
In a radio interview in New York last week, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo urged Gore to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I would like to see him get in," Cuomo said. "Right now, the Democratic voice is not a single voice. It is not a chorus. It is babble."
I'm sure the Democrats already in the race really appreciated Cuomo's remarks. Cuomo did pay a backhanded compliment to Sen. Bob Graham of Florida. "One of the things I like about him, regrettably, is that he doesn't have that pizazz, that jazz, that stuff that startles people," he explained, adding that Graham might make a dandy vice presidential candidate. Ouch!
Despite Cuomo's urging and the stirrings of a Draft Gore movement in New Hampshire, the former vice president made it clear he will not be entering the presidential fray. Then he proceeded to give President Bush a good political lashing in a speech to a liberal group in New York that only heightened the yearning among some Democrats for a Bush-Gore rematch next year.
Gore said the man who narrowly defeated him for president in 2000 "routinely shows disrespect" for "honest and open debate." He charged that Bush was ignoring "the mandates of basic honesty" in pursuit of a "totalistic ideology" to benefit his wealthy friends.
"The president's mishandling and selective use of the best evidence available on the threat posed by Iraq is pretty much the same as the way he intentionally distorted the best available evidence on climate change, and rejected the best available evidence on the threat posed to America's economy by his tax and budget proposals," Gore said.
He deplored what he called the lack of "honesty and integrity" in the debate leading to war and suggested the president's real motivation for invading Iraq was oil. "Too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way," Gore said.
Pretty strong stuff, and the audience of liberal Democrats couldn't get enough. Gore delivered a harsher assessment of the president than anything heard from the Democratic presidential contenders, including Howard Dean, the most aggressive Bush critic in the pack. Elaine Kamarck, a former Gore aide, told reporters the purpose of the speech was to provide a "road map" to the party's presidential candidates on how to assail Bush.
It was good to see Al Gore back in the spotlight, however briefly, instructing Democrats in the art of political flogging. The problem is, I don't think many people will be interested in anything these presidential wannabes say or do until that loony-tune California recall election is history. After all, The California Recall starring actors, pornographers, politicians, comedians and at least one newspaper columnist is just the latest twist in reality television.
- Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com