Off Course

JUST for the record, David Keene doesn’t hesitate to say what he thinks of Al Gore – “He’s a fool” – or the former vice president’s followers at MoveOn.org – “These are nutty people.” Of course, sentiments like that might not seem newsworthy coming from Keene, who, as the longtime head of the American Conservative Union, has spent a career fighting just about everything that Gore and the nation’s largest left-wing activist group stand for. But these days Keene’s thoughts are news because Gore and MoveOn, along with some of their allies on the left, are claiming a number of conservative groups, including Keene’s, as partners in what might be called the war on the War on Terror – and on George W. Bush.

On January 16, for example, when Gore traveled to Washington to give a blistering speech in which he accused the president of curtailing Americans’ civil liberties, shredding the Constitution, and “breaking the law repeatedly and insistently,” organizers told reporters that the event was the product of a coalition that included groups as disparate as the American Conservative Union and MoveOn; the ACLU and Americans for Tax Reform; and Amnesty International and the Free Congress Foundation. “We’re not interested in Democrats versus Republicans or Republicans versus Democrats,” said Michael Ostrolenk, head of the Liberty Coalition, which organized the event (along with a liberal legal group, the American Constitution Society). “We think this is an issue of the American people versus the state.”

About the Author

Byron York

Byron York is a former White House correspondent for National Review.

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JUST for the record, David Keene doesn’t hesitate to say what he thinks of Al Gore – “He’s a fool” – or the former vice president’s followers at MoveOn.org – “These are nutty people.” Of course, sentiments like that might not seem newsworthy coming from Keene, who, as the longtime head of the American Conservative Union, has spent a career fighting just about everything that Gore and the nation’s largest left-wing activist group stand for. But these days Keene’s thoughts are news because Gore and MoveOn, along with some of their allies on the left, are claiming a number of conservative groups, including Keene’s, as partners in what might be called the war on the War on Terror – and on George W. Bush.

On January 16, for example, when Gore traveled to Washington to give a blistering speech in which he accused the president of curtailing Americans’ civil liberties, shredding the Constitution, and “breaking the law repeatedly and insistently,” organizers told reporters that the event was the product of a coalition that included groups as disparate as the American Conservative Union and MoveOn; the ACLU and Americans for Tax Reform; and Amnesty International and the Free Congress Foundation. “We’re not interested in Democrats versus Republicans or Republicans versus Democrats,” said Michael Ostrolenk, head of the Liberty Coalition, which organized the event (along with a liberal legal group, the American Constitution Society). “We think this is an issue of the American people versus the state.”