If you listened quietly during last nights Oscar telecast, you could hear the collective questioning by every Democrat in America (including myself) as they watched Al Gore seamlessly navigate the red carpet and Oscar telecast with humor and ease – where the hell was this guy six years ago?

I tuned into the pre-cast just in time to see him joking with Ryan Seacrest that William Hung (of “She Bangs!” fame) was his favorite artist. Then we watched him and Tipper take Ellen’s rib during the opening monologue. His segment with Leonardo DiCaprio on global warming and the Academy’s first “green” telecast was sobering, but he lightened the mood with a faux-declaration that he would run in ’08 (which was loudly interrupted by the Oscar orchestra). When he picked up the Oscar for Inconvenient Truth in the Best Documentary category he reminded everyone that, “…we need to solve the climate crisis. It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource — let’s renew it.”

To see Al Gore last night was not to look upon the face of a man contemplating a 2008 run. He’s looking at W trying to untangle the Iraq/Afghanistan mess and laughing all the way to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

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