will the real slim-Gore please stand up...

[Jason Griffis]

Hey all,

Jason Griffis here in Jacksonville, Florida.  Not trying to ignite anything,
but oh well if I do.  This must be told!

Al Gore is in trouble. He's trailing George W. Bush in the polls, even in
some traditionally democratic states. FBI memos state that he may have
lied during the campaign finance investigation and he keeps shooting
himself in the foot.

Gore toured a posh pre-kindergarten daycare center this week to promote
his new daycare agenda. Al thinks it's important for ALL children to
attend daycare. (I guess staying home with Mom or Dad isn't his idea of a
good home environment.) The tour was to emphasize the importance of
quality daycare and background checks for daycare workers to ensure child
safety. One problem -- the daycare center he was visiting is being
accused of child abuse in a lawsuit.

Gore's people said they weren't aware of the suit and admitted that it
was a mistake not to know. Duh!

Besides the lawsuit flub, the tuition of the daycare school is $14,250 a
year for a 10-hour day. Is this a place that an average American can use
for his child? Are the people that pay this kind of money using daycare
because they have no other choice? Is this guy out of touch or what?

Then there's Tracy Mayberry of Carthage, Tennessee, Al's hometown.
Mayberry rents a rundown home from Al Gore via his property management
company, Gore Realty for $400 a month. Her home is right next door to
Al's mansion.

For more than a year Mayberry has been complaining about the shoddy
conditions of her home. The toilets clog frequently and leak raw sewage.
The sinks smell of rotten eggs. The septic tank is busted and the
linoleum on the floors is threadbare.

Gore Realty ignored the requests for repair until they decided to issue
an eviction notice to Mayberry and her family. Only when Mayberry told
her sad story to a local Tennessee television station did Al agree to
make the repairs.

This may seem like a small thing and irrelevant to one's ability as the
President of the United States, but recall Gore's earlier statements
regarding Bush's compassionate conservatism.

"There is a difference between talking about compassion and actually
putting your highest ideals into practice." Indeed there is, Al, a large
difference.

Mayberry's sole source of income is the family's Social Security check.
According to The New York Post, her husband suffers from congestive heart
disease and diabetes. Her two adopted children have chronic illnesses and
her stepdaughter is mentally retarded. If any family deserves some
compassion from Al Gore, it's the Mayberrys. Yet, it took a television
news story and an election year to get Al to notice the injustice he was
perpetrating in his own back yard. What hypocrisy.

Al finally delivered on the repairs the other day. As I viewed the images
of the old, broken toilets being removed from the Mayberry's rental home
I noticed that they were not the low flow, double-flush-needed toilets
that Al has helped foist on the rest of us. More hypocrisy? Did Al not
retrofit all of his rental properties with low flow toilets? Why not?
Because of the cost, probably. After all, Al's in this to make money, not
to help the poor. But, Al has told us that the environmentally friendly
appliances will save us money. So why no retrofits? Hmmmm.

I wonder if the Gore mansion next to the Mayberry shack has low flow
toilets and low flow, tough-to-keep-the-whole-body-wet showerheads. My
best guess is no. And it has to be a guess because the Gores are refusing
to release that information.

I guess it makes sense that Al toured the daycare being sued for child
abuse with Rosie O'Donnell. Hypocrites need to stick together.

By Greg Knapp


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