Clinton and Gore: Still the odd couple

In his new book based on a series of interviews with Bill Clinton, Taylor Branch provides a remarkable account of a conversation between Clinton and Al Gore late in 2000, after Gore’s presidential campaign had finally ended in perhaps the most painful defeat imaginable.

Clinton told Gore, Branch writes, that he was disappointed that he wasn’t used more in the campaign’s final days and that Gore had not developed any overarching theme. Gore countered that Clinton had never personally apologized to him for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and that he was still traumatized by the 1996 fundraising scandals. Gore also suggested that Clinton was to blame for his defeat by George W. Bush

But even Lost Boys grow up. And while appearances can and often have been deceiving when it comes to the complicated case of Al Gore and Bill Clinton, friends and current and former associates say there are increasing signs that they are growing back into a friendship . . . or a least a civil relationship in which bygones remain bygones.

A joint appearance at Jackson Day dinner in Nashville in late August marked three co-billed Clinton/Gore events in the past several months. One of those, the airport tarmac return in Burbank, Calif., of two journalists held by North Korea, featured Gore saluting Clinton as “my partner and friend,” and wrapping him in a lengthy, seemingly genuine hug.

In Music City, Gore said not once, but twice, that he was “so proud of Bill Clinton.” And Clinton was similarly effusive. Gore, he said “was the best vice president this country ever had. And if you think about the difference between Al Gore and Dick Cheney, no one can say it doesn’t make any difference who the vice president is.”