A rchive Date
[ 11-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[Al Gore, slumlord-in-chief
By R. CORT KIRKWOOD
Ottawa Sun
June 11, 2000
Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore has many plans for America. He will fix Social Security, the bankrupt socialist pension program, get health insurance for every man, woman and child, and even, he announced this week, ensure day-care centers everywhere are safe and sound.
But the one subject this statesman hasn't addressed is rotten landlords. Certainly, a man burdened with the weight of babysitting must be transfixed by some of the conditions in which tenants live. But alas, the Man From Carthage, Tenn., is silent. Wondering why?
Until last week, the liberal Democrat prince, much like the feudal lords of old, had tenants living in squalor on his vast estate. The shack in which the Mayberry family lives, which sits in view of the Gore home on the family's 80-acre farm, stands in stark contrast to Al and Tipper's digs, which are surrounded by an electrified fence to zap intruders.
Like the serfs of old who saw their masters only when they happened by in a gilded carriage, the Mayberrys see the Gores only when the vice president's government chopper lands, perhaps after a tough day of sailing at Hyannis with the Kennedys.
According to the Washington Times and other newspapers that visited the Mayberrys, Gore refused until just the other day to fix a clogged toilet, paint the filthy walls or replace a rotten linoleum floor.
How bad was it? Speaking about the crapper, Mrs. Mayberry said, "It's overflowed more times than I can count. Me and the plunger are on a first-name basis."
"One work crew," the paper reported, "was expected to replace the kitchen linoleum, which is so worn that large patches of floorboards are exposed underneath. Another planned to paint the stained walls, which have not received a fresh coat of paint since long before the Mayberrys moved in 18 months ago."
The kitchen floor was so bad, by the way, Mrs. Mayberry's son tripped and cracked his noggin.
If the story sounds like something Dickens wrote, well, listen to the rest of it.
Surely, you say, Al Gore didn't know these things. The property manager must have acted without his knowledge.
Not so, if you believe Mrs. Mayberry. She says the property manager told her the vice president had to approve all repairs; that she complained about the problem for a year.
So Gore should have known about the problem and corrected it long ago. But he did nothing until a television station in Nashville found out exactly what Scrooge Gore thinks about the huddled masses on which he is counting for votes.
Yet the station and the uproar it caused didn't just foment the repairs. It turns out the property manager, perhaps having grown tired of the complaints, had given the Mayberrys an eviction notice. Mr. Mayberry's plight adds the Dickensian touch: He suffers with heart disease and diabetes and lives on disability payments. The property manager didn't know that? So much for Gore's liberal compassion.
Al Gore says he can fix it all: Social Security, the government health care plans, daycare centers across the country, the environment, national defense and foreign policy. But he can't fix a toilet in a house built on his own property, which he can see from his own mansion, and which his own realty company manages.
Then again, this is a man who has never known the life of an average American. He has never gone to bed wondering what bill to pay next or whether he will be able to afford college for this children. He will never need a government pension, or free health insurance, or anything the government has to offer. Unlike the Mayberrys, Gore has always been privileged to live in wealth and luxury.
He has never worried about forcing the landlord to fix a clogged toilet. This week, we got a good look at the real Al Gore.
Kirkwood writes on U.S. affairs for the Sun Letters to the editor should be sent to oped@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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