Brotherhood of the Beard: V-P Al Gore

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man." William Shakespeare

A fan of both Earth in the Balance (1991) and the more recent An Inconvenient Truth (2006), I thought it might be apropos to post a picture of Vice-President Al Gore sporting the beard he grew immediately following his Presidential "defeat" in 2000. What I found after searching on "Al Gore beard" was not necessarily what I expected:


This political cartoon by Steve Sack for the The Minneapolis Star-Tribune seems to insinuate that men, like Al, who seem to be lacking that certain jenascqua, can get an influx of macho via growing ye ole beard... HUZZAH!

How about the article which appeared in the Los Angeles Times by John Balzar entitled Hair is Blowin' In the Wind? Subtitled Al Gore's Challenge: Living Up to His Beard, author Balzar brings up the interesting point that in an age when conformity seems to be the norm, it may be time to "Bring on a few beards." Of course, we now know that Al didn't have a high enough level of committment to the beard to stay in it for the long haul, and so quickly conformed (kind of) himself.

Finally, comes this little cartoon from Kohlshaat's World which once again points out the flat out bad-assed-ness of the beard:

Fo-rizzle, dizzle!

Par les cheveux sur mon menton chinny de menton!