I liken Al Gore to many of the Hollywood starlets who seem to have it all, and yet are unlucky in love. Or at least marriage. (Just think of the beautiful Halle Berry, the likeable Sandra Bullock, the successful Jennifer Aniston.) What does a guy have to do to hang on to his wife? Win a Nobel Prize? (Check.) An Oscar? (Check.) Score the Vice Presidency? (Check.) The Presidency? (Debatable Check.) Be a kazillionaire? (Check.) Look good in flannel? (Really Debatable Check.)
His kissing skills look like they could be on a long list of gripes that Tipper Gore has no doubt accumulated over the years. ("It's like mashing my lips up against a bowling ball of lust," I can hear her muttering disdainfully to a girlfriend.) But my real guess is that, despite her Mennonite-like love of censorship, at heart Tipper is a girl who just wants to have fun.
And being Al Gore's wife, let's face it, doesn't have "fun" written all over it. I mean, she endured decades of elections, politics and living in the Washington fishbowl. To be followed by that most harrowing of experiences: Running for the Presidency. And losing in a horrible, controversial, drawn-out Supreme Court battle. And instead of throwing in the towel and retiring to a life of golf and jet skis and whatever else the fabulously wealthy do once their political capital wears thin... Al decided to lick his wounds for a couple years and then start building up a whole new pile of political capital.
Tipper had to have been, like, "Whoa. I've been down this road. For several hundred miles. With very few pit stops. Explain to me again exactly why you care what any of those jackasses thinks about you anymore?"
And what was the answer? I'm bored? I've discovered I just don't like fun and leisure very much? I've decided we need more money?
So The Inconvenient Truth and all the glory that went with it was spawned (actually, "stumbled onto" is my theory). And Al launched himself into the stratosphere as an environmental icon for the ages.
I can only imagine that the break was confirmed when it became clear that even this was not enough for the quiet egomaniac.
At this point, Tipper is tapping her foot impatiently, growling, "OK my dear. You did it. We have, like, three giant Oprah-sized mansions and a lot of fame and everybody thinks you are a rock star. Can we please resume real life now?"
But real life, for Al, had become a blur of fast cars, California girls, and lines of ... er, well. Maybe it wasn't that sordid. But real life - - a marriage, family, jet skis, whatever - - clearly can't compete with the siren call of fame and accomplishment. For Al, the inconvenient truth is that life, the quiet stuff that happens in between movie premieres and Supreme Court decisions, is no longer enough to hold his interest for long.
I never expected to like someone named Tipper, even a little bit. But I'm with her on this one. It would have been nice to see Al put her desires ahead of his own for a decade or two, instead of continually reinventing himself - - at the cost of his marriage - - on the world stage.
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