Thursday, October 23, 1997

Exactly who are Al Gore's role models?

By Cal Thomas

LOS ANGELES -- Vice President Al Gore told the Hollywood Radio and Television Society that "Hollywood produces the world's role models and helps shape kids' minds," and, therefore, they have "a deep responsibility."

Gore praised the ABC sitcom "Ellen," which stars a woman who is a lesbian on and off television, saying, "And when the character Ellen came out, millions of Americans were forced to look at sexual orientation in a more open light."

Five years ago former Vice President Dan Quayle took a different view of Hollywood. He was denounced by some (but praised by more) for saying single motherhood portrayed on "Murphy Brown" sent the wrong message. Quayle responded to the Gore speech: "I'm always surprised to hear politicians promoting the agenda of the Hollywood elites. If there's anybody whose agenda needs promoting, it is the middle-class American family."

Gore has come a long way since he and his wife Tipper criticized some of Hollywood's darker products. More than a decade ago, Mrs. Gore co-founded the Parents' Music Resource Center which persuaded the movie and record industries to label video rental films and recorded music containing high levels of violence and sex. Back then Mrs. Gore said: "It's as if we let companies go into a national park and dump everything into the stream and we all sit there and go, ‘Well, guess we can't swim in that stream anymore,' and it's our stream. I am trying to make a connection in people's minds that we can make a difference and reassert a sense of control."

Then-Sen. Gore was on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which held hearings on the content of videos and rock music. According to a Nov. 3, 1987, story in Daily Variety, the Gores did penance before a group of Hollywood music executives. Mrs. Gore said the hearings were a mistake and "sent the wrong message." Sen. Gore agreed with his wife and attempted to excuse his involvement in the hearings by pointing out that he was "a freshman minority member of the committee" and in no position to veto the proceeding.

But Daily Variety's Henry Schipper checked the Congressional Record and found Gore's conduct at the hearings was a lot more enthusiastic than he was willing to admit. According to Schipper: "Gore was among the first to arrive and the last to leave. He questioned, often vigorously and at length, every witness or group of witnesses to come before the panel, and in his opening statement he explicitly ‘commended' committee chairman Sen. John Danforth for convening the meeting."

What caused the transformation? The lust for money. Gore knew then, and knows now, he needs Hollywood cash to run for president, so he sacrifices principle to expediency, as he did with abortion. Gore wrote a letter in the mid-'80s opposing not only federal funding of abortion but the procedure itself. Now he is so radically pro-abortion that he wants to force the procedure on the Third World as a partial cure for his pseudo-scientific theory of global warming.

Things have gotten worse in Hollywood since the '80s. A review of the movie "Gummo" in the New York Times says the film "creates an aimless vision of Midwestern teen-age anomie, complete with drugs, garbage, dead cats and neat tricks like turning off Granny's respirator." That scene contains this dialogue: "She stinks. Her life is over. She smells like baked ham. She's dead as hell. Go over and shoot her in the foot. Try and wake her up." The respirator is turned off, and a kid says, "She'll be dead now. Too bad for Granny, but look on the bright side: She does get to miss the rest of the movie." Role model? Maybe for budding Jack Kevorkians and serial killers.

The Gores deserved the credit and respect they received from parents for what appeared to be their principled stand against the poisoning of young American minds. Now -- like President Clinton, who would trade who-knows-what (but we will know eventually) for foreign contributions -- the Gores have sold principle in their own pursuit of the White House.

It makes you wonder what they really believe. Al Gore may think Hollywood produces role models, but given his shiftiness on two matters of principle, he has shown he is not a role model anyone should follow.

Los Angeles Times Syndicate