Gore's next move

What happened

Supporters of former vice president Al Gore have stepped up pressure on him to run for president since he won the Nobel Peace Prize last week, but Gore has reportedly told former campaign aides that he doesn’t think anyone can beat out Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

What the commentators said

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Gore’s fans should stop pushing him to run, said The Philadelphia Inquirer in an editorial. That “would end Gore's single-minded focus on global warming, which could hurt the issue's momentum at a critical juncture.” The Peace Prize has relieved Gore of the label of “environmental extremist,” which means he’s now in a position to do more good than before.

Let Gore run, said Investor’s Business Daily in an editorial. Then his alarmist climate-change theories will be exposed as “hot air.” His Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is full of "distortions." He focuses on the 2 percent of Antarctica that is warming instead of the 98 percent that is cooling; he depicts Florida under water—which would require a 13-foot sea-level rise, rather than the 13 inches scientists predict by century’s end.

“What is it about Al Gore that drives right-wingers insane?” said Paul Krugman in The New York Times (free registration required). For starters, “the American people chose” him for president in 2000, even though his opponent “ended up in the White House.” And Gore keeps being right—about the environment, about how invading Iraq would create chaos. He has endured the right’s “smear campaign,” and “it drives them crazy.”