Gore: A Political Life [Hardcover]

Robert Zelnick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

Zelnick lost his job as political reporter for ABC News after writing this probing account which fully evaluates Al Gore's evolving political career.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bob Zelnick gives Vice President Al Gore a critical once-over on these pages, chronicling his rise from a life on Embassy Row as the son of Senator Al Gore Sr. to his vice-presidency in the Clinton administration. Although not a hatchet job, the book does linger over the more controversial aspects of Gore's professional life: Zelnick clearly delights in recounting Gore's questionable fundraising practices (remember the 1996 Buddhist temple incident?), how today's antismoking animus clashes with his onetime pride in tobacco farming, his flip-flop on abortion and awkward attempts to justify it, his environmental extremism, and his incautious rhetoric ("no controlling legal authority"). Readers will also appreciate several sharp observations that have not yet attracted much attention. "Vice President Gore, who claims paternity of the term 'information superhighway,'" writes Zelnick, "had nothing to say during the first five and a half years of his vice-presidency about the biggest problem in the history of high-tech America"--the Y2K computer bug. There are also gossipy items: the Gores "resented the treatment their son had received" following a smoking-and-drinking-in-the-woods-with-girls incident and transferred Al III from one posh Washington prep school to another. On the whole, Gore skeptics will have their doubts affirmed--and his allies will confront troubling questions about the man who would be president. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Albert Arnold Gore Jr., who once called the American vice-presidency a "political dead end," will not be flattered by this biography from former ABC News correspondent Zelnick (Backfire). The author does little to penetrate Gore's famously wooden exterior and compiles the usual list of anecdotes from Gore's formative years at the knee of his father, a U.S. senator from Tennessee: working on a farm from sunrise to sunset to "build his character," joining Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones onstage for an "Old Time Country Panorama," writing an eerily prescient honors thesis on the impact of television on the presidency. But when Zelnick turns to Gore's political career, starting with election to the House in 1976, it becomes apparent that objective biography is not his aim. In successive chapters, he attacks Gore for reversing positions on abortion, for incorporating his sister's death into his speech at the 1996 Democratic National Convention and for capitulating to unions when "reinventing" government. Zelnick pummels Gore for making what Zelnick says were illegal fund-raising calls from the White House and for accepting campaign contributions from Chinese citizens. He even manages to accuse Gore of being both a radical and a hypocrite on core environmental issues. Many of these concerns seem legitimate, raising troubling questions about the man who would be president. But although it is rarely malicious, Zelnick's assault is so relentless that it is difficult to accept all of his charges. At times he can be gracious (Gore's stint as an army reporter in Vietnam, Zelnick states, was "decent and honorable"), but the cumulative weight of his book is overwhelmingly and exhaustively critical.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; First edition. edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895263262
• ISBN-13: 978-0895263261
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,336,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Won't be popular within the Al Gore presidential campaign, May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gore: A Political Life (Hardcover)

This is the book that cost the author, Bob Zelnick, his job at ABC. He chose to write an objective, even handed, biography of Al Gore - the man who is well positioned to become the next presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. That was not what our leading liberal network wanted to see from its employees.

The book looks clearly and honestly at the real Al Gore, not the Al Gore that you will see represented by political "spinners" and their cohorts in the media. It fully documents the opportunism and hypocrisy that has marked his career - ranging from his "flips" on tobacco and abortion, to his phony "tour of duty" in Nam, to the his environmental extremism, etc. - but doesn't ignore the accomplishments; his support of the Gulf War and of Ronald Regan's strategic nuclear decisions for instance. If you want to know the truth about the man, and cut through the smog that will shortly be emanating from the political spinners and their focus groups - read this boo

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A critical but fair look at the man who could be king, March 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gore: A Political Life (Hardcover)

I had remembered Bob Zelnick losing his job from ABC for writing this book and can't believe that he did. There are no new revelations per se, but I don't think that was the aim of the book. It is a critical analysis of the manner in which Gore has dramaticaly switched his positions on issues like the environment and abortion-and is well documented to boot. Surprisingly, there has not been a book on Gore to date. We should know who our next potential president is. This book paves the way and is written in true journalistic fashion. A must read for!!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gore is Good Family Man But Too Politically Expedient, July 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gore: A Political Life (Hardcover)

I think this book is a pretty fair assessment of Vice President Al Gore. Bob Zelnick would appear to have given Gore a fair shake and a balanced treatment of the facts. But the message one gets is that Gore is an enigma. He is a man seemingly devoted to truth, justice and family. But he has also seemed willing to sacrifice all of the above if it has meant advancing him one step closer to his ultimate goal - the presidency. The fact that Gore is politically expedient isn't especially revealing. However, unlike most politicians, Gore doesn't think he is doing wrong or being expedient when he sacrifices principle for political gain. In fact, he seems to go out of his way to rewrite history so that he comes out looking clean. If elected, he certainly would restore some semblance of honor back to the White House; but that isn't saying much considering how far his boss has lowered the respectability of that institution. But Gore seems too much like his boss in that he is politically spineless and because of his tendency to stretch or obscure the truth. And his ideas on the environment are way out there on the fringes. I'm not sure I want a man adhering to pseudo-science to be the ultimate say in economic decisions for America. I think Bob Zelnick has done a service in presenting a comprehensive picture of Gore and I believe every American voter should read this book in order to become more informed for Election 2000.