...something to consider is that Al Gore provides an example of the power of ideas in the political arena, from back in the days when ideas weren't always strangled at birth by partisan rhetoric.

Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. But he deserves full credit for coming up with the Big Idea of converting the Pentagon's private computer network into the public Internet, and crafting and pushing through the legislation to make it possible...and thereby creating untold trillions of dollars of wealth, not to mention turning the world upside down in the process.

Back then Gore was a Democrat, while today it's anybody's guess. It's delightful to think that one Democrat created more wealth than the army of Republicans who've been in power for so many long years. Gore created wealth, Bush and the Republican Congress only redistributed it to the already-wealthy. Dontcha love the irony of it all?

Seems like the smart money would want to listen to Al to see if he has any more brainstorms like that up his sleeve. Even Republican money, if it's smart, because a dollar created by a Gore idea is just as green as a dollar created by a Gingrich idea (should there ever be such a thing as a Gingrich idea for creating wealth).

Speaking of green, a lot of serious business leaders are coming around to the idea, popularized by Big Al, that there's serious money to be made in addressing climate change and cleaning up the environment, and profit to be enhanced through efficiency. Can you concede the tiny possibility that just maybe Gore's on to something again? (You don't have to confess the guilt of humanity in causing climate change, just wondering if you can acknowledge that addressing it might be profitable as well as beneficial.)

Gore's smart but not the smartest guy in the world, and he's not the only fount of good ideas in the world. People keep obsessing over Gore himself, but what's important, to me, is the idea that reforming American politics to give ideas and reason a place at the table--instead of totally excluding them in the modern style--can create fertile ground for lots of good ideas that benefit us all and America as a whole. That is the way the Founders intended it to be. God help me, but on this I'm as inclined to look to the Founders for guidance as any Conservative. I'm sure they'd be appalled at what television and scientific marketing has done to American politics. You know Gore's right, even if it galls you to admit it. And I expect you won't admit it, either, but I trust that in the privacy of your own head you'll put principles before partisanship.