At first we were surprised that Al Gore endorsed so early in the contest.  It’s only June, and he’s already made his mind to support Barack Obama.

Then we realized why he made the courageous act to rush out his announcement: it’s because he’s got killer material, but it’s quite topical.

From Gore’s endorsement speech last night:

If you care about food safety, if you like a T on your BLT, you know that elections matter.

Hilarious.  Bush to blame for salmonella.  If only Gore had some funny way to blame Bush for the Iowa floods.  Sure beats kissing a pig at the Iowa state fair.

Or kissing a pet, as evidenced by this Gore line also from last night:

After the last eight years, even our dogs and cats have learned that elections matter.

Hilarious again.  No, you wouldn’t wanted to sit on jokes with a shelf line so short.

Go get ‘im Al — maybe there’s still more Supreme Court jokes in you.

We wondered yesterday who would play this guy in HBO’s upcoming movie “Recount” …

One loyal reader suggests the answer is obvious: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who has the added benefit of not only deciding the Florida 2000 result, but also already has an IMDB entry set up.

Political junkies and Hollywood junkies alike should get quite a kick out of watching the HBO film “Recount,” debuting Sunday, May 25 on HBO.

Shot on location in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, “Recount” portrays the turmoil of the 2000 presidential election in Florida, following the Florida recount from Election Day in November 2000 through the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of George W. Bush over Al Gore five weeks later.

Check out who’s playing whom — a delightful mix of political and entertainment bold-faced names:

• Kevin Spacey plays Ron Klain, Vice President Al Gore’s former Chief of Staff
• Tom Wilkinson portrays James Baker III, who was previously Secretary of State to President George H. W. Bush
• Denis Leary plays Michael Whouley, national field director during the Gore campaign
• Laura Dern portrays Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of Florida
• Bob Balaban portrays Ben Ginsberg, national counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign in the 2000 election
• John Hurt plays Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State to President Bill Clinton
• Bruce McGill plays Republican lobbyist Mac Stipanovich
• Ed Begley, Jr. portrays attorney David Boies, who represented the Gore campaign before the Supreme Court

Of course, we can’t wait to find out who plays this guy …

How do you recover from heart-breaking failure?

Grow a beard.

Here’s former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson.

Of course, that may set him up nicely for the Nobel Peace Prize he surely craves.

Time magazine has been on a kick lately for picking persons of the year who have monosyllabic names.  Bono in 2005.  You in 2006.   And in 2007?  Let’s dispense with all the December speculation  (Steve Jobs?, Ben Bernanke?  Paris?) and forecast that it’s no contest: Al Gore (can’t get more syllabic than that) will be Time’s 2007 Person of the Year.

Which means the only thing left for Al Gore to achieve, short of becoming President, is winning the Kentucky Derby.

Not sure if the Fairness Doctrine covers botanical gardens, but here’s something curious we learn today:

GARDEN TOUR, GLOBAL WARMING MOVIE, a tour of Meadowlark Botanical Gardens followed by an outdoor screening of former vice president Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Bring lawn chairs or blankets; food for sale; sponsored by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. 3 p.m., 9750 Meadowlark Gardens Ct., Vienna. Free. 703-255-3631 or http://www.nvrpa.org.

In the interest of equal time, I sure hope the Park Authority next sponsors “Red Dawn.”

We check in now with with the website of “Workers World, workers & oppressed peoples of the world unite!”

And what “struggle” do we find?  A spiffy new attack on Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize.

Tough to capture and do justice to all the venom contained under their headline, “Gore and the Nobel prize: ‘Green’ polluters get a boost.”  So please forgive me if the following gems just aren’t enough:

• Will it really help save the planet from environmental ruin that former Vice President Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?  That might seem like a strange question. So let’s ask another: Has it helped stop illegal and predatory imperialist wars that Jimmy Carter got the prize in 2002; that Yasser Arafat had to share it in 1994 with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel; that Nelson Mandela was awarded it jointly with F.W. de Klerk of apartheid South Africa in 1993; or that Le Duc Tho had to share it with Henry Kissinger in 1973?
• Yet while Gore’s film painted the picture of a looming catastrophe for the planet and all its inhabitants, it had very little to say about how to stop it. Buy low-wattage light bulbs. Ride a bike to work or school. Invest in green industries.  Nevertheless, the extreme right wing in the U.S. is frothing at the mouth about him receiving the Nobel, as can be seen in the many on-line comments on this subject.
• Gore, who happens to be an heir to a family fortune built on oil—his father was very close to Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum …
• What Gore’s Nobel prize underscores is that the biggest banks and corporations have moved, and are now up to their eyeballs in schemes to make “green” money.
• Science and technology are not to blame. It is the social system under which they have developed that has perverted technology from its original purpose: to solve humanity’s problems in the struggle to survive and flourish. Capitalism has been one headlong rush to produce more and more, create markets where none existed before, and even destroy other countries’ industries in order to profit from rebuilding them.  Gore can never oppose this system—he is an advocate for it and a son of the ruling class.

Actually, forget Gore for the moment.  It’s sorrowfully rare when Le Duc Tho gets appropriate shout-outs in the blogopshere.  So let’s take the Workers World’s lead and show Henry Kissinger shaking hands with Le Duc Tho in Paris after their agreement on the cease-fire terms of the Vietnam War, 1973.

… or merchant of war and death?
Al Gore, from the  Oct. 3, 2000 presidential debate:

“I was one of only a few Democrats in the Senate to support the Persian Gulf War. “

Al Gore, from the Oct. 11, 2000 presidential debate:

“I was one of the few members of my political party to support former President Bush in the Persian Gulf War resolution, and at the end of that war, for whatever reason, it was not finished in a way that removed Saddam Hussein from power. I know there are all kinds of circumstances and explanations. But the fact is that that’s the situation that was left when I got there. And we have maintained the sanctions. Now I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein.”

From the same debate:

“…we have to continue building up readiness and military strength.”

Al Gore, from the Oct. 17, 2000 presidential debate:

“I support the death penalty. … I think it is a deterrent. I know that’s a controversial view, but I do believe it’s a deterrent.”

What punishment does Lindsay Lohan deserve?

You might argue she should get off easy.  After all, when Lohan was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence and with a suspended license, and felony cocaine possession, perhaps she wasn’t hurting anyone but herself.  A victimless crime.

But in reality she hurt a great many people.  For starters, our soldiers in Iraq.

Last year, Lohan reportedly told Elle magazine:  “I’ve been trying to go to Iraq with Hillary Clinton for so long.  Hillary was trying to work it out, but it seemed too dangerous.”

Iraq’s too dangerous for whom – Lohan?  The way she drives, nothing’s too dangerous.  For Hillary?   Nah.  Perish the thought.  Heck, Hillary debates Kucinich.  You don’t think that takes guts?

Lohan told Elle: “I wanted to do what Marilyn Monroe did (during the Korean War), when she went and just set up a stage and did a concert for the troops all by herself. It’s so amazing seeing that one woman just going somewhere, this beautiful sex kitten, who’s basically a pinup, which is what I’ve always aspired to be.”

Hoo-ah!  Beautiful sex kittens – and presumably we’re still talking about Lohan , not Hillary – are just what our soldiers need right now.  That and body armor.  But they really need Lohan, that fearless sex kitten.  “I’m not afraid of going,” she told Elle. “My security guard is going to take me to a gun range when I get back to L.A., and I’m going to start taking shooting lessons.”

She would have been better off taking driving lessons, not shooting lessons.  But it’s a little too late for that kind of guidance, eh?  Alas, entertaining Iraq is now a dream deferred, if not forever dashed.  Lohan could have been for our Iraq troops what Stallone was for Vietnam vets and Schwarzenegger was for cyborgs.

Assuming Lohan does go to jail, depriving America of her talent for any period of time is a hardship that hits the political world worst of all.

Promoting her work in “Bobby” –  the politically-charged movie centering on Robert Kennedy’s assassination – Lohan said, according to the BBC, “I feel I have always been somewhat politically engaged.  I strongly encourage people of my age and generation to have a say and to vote, and to involve themselves in what’s going on in the world, because they are living in it.”

Living in it, indeed.  But Lohan was being far too modest.  She did more than just get an entire generation to vote.  She possess a unique wisdom – the wisdom of sending e-mails.  The kind which mention Al Gore.

And what better way to engage the world politically than invoke the almighty Al Gore.

In December, Slate ran what it claimed is an e-mail Lohan sent to 18 people.  The e-mail says, among other things (and we won’t embarrass Ms. Lohan further by including the obvious [sic’s]):

“I am willing to release a politically/morally correct, fully adequite letter to the press if any of you are willing to help. … I have such an impact on our younger generations, as well as generations older than me.  Which we all know and can obviously see.  People are just mean. …I am willing to do anything I need to get my life the way it should be and the way I work for it to be. … Al Gore will help me came up to me last night and said he would be very happy to have a conversation with me.  If he is willing to help me.  Let’s find out.  Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton … would be willing, if we just ask.  If we just ASK.”

That ending, by the way, is sensational dramatic flair.  If … we … just … ASK.  Very Captain Kirk.  Works will with, Help me Obi Wan Al Gore, you’re my only hope.  And with Gore’s extended family, R2D2 and C3PO.

After that note appeared, a Gore representative told Access Hollywood: “I can confirm for you that Mr. Gore has only met Ms. Lohan once, very briefly, at the GQ Men of the Year dinner last week. There were hundreds of other guests.”

Of course, just because they’ve met just once doesn’t mean they still can’t love/hate each other.  Earlier last year, Gore told Jay Leno, “I’m in this HUGE feud with Lindsay Lohan.”

So throw the book at Lindsay Lohan.   She’s betraying America’s soldiers.  She’s abandoning a generation aspiring greatness and ballot access.  And she’s playing hard to get with Al Gore.

Is that any way for a sex kitten to act?

Prepping for the all night Iraq debate in the Senate, Harry Reid said, “I personally don’t like pizza, so that won’t be a part of the deal.”

Wrong.  Turns out it was.

ABC News:

More than 30 boxes of Al’s pizza, a local DC purveyor of pies, were wheeled into the Capitol Building just before 6pm

Al’s pizza?  Not Hillary’s pizza.  Not Barack’s pizza.  But Al’s pizza.

Al Gore: He’s everywhere.  Concerts.  Pizza.  C-SPAN 3.