It takes more than the usual scale of hypocrisy to earn mention on the Scoreboard, but Al Gore's comments at a recent signing of his almost comically pretentious new book meets the standard. Gore scolded the media and the public for its obsession with celebrity gossip and trivia, apparently defined as anything that Al Gore isn't interested in at the time. Breitbart media reported that Gore condemned the "destruction of the boundary between news and entertainment." The Scoreboard heartily agrees, but Gore should not be the one making the point. This is approximately like Alberto Gonzalez complaining that there is not enough honor in public service these days, Ann Coulter bemoaning the lack of civility in public discourse, Larry King chastising talk show hosts for not asking tough enough questions, or Rosie O'Donnell suggesting that under-educated performers who don't know what they're talking about should keep their opinions on national issues to themselves.

Al Gore, we should all remember (even if Al doesn't) was the man who followed up his fluke defeat in the 2000 presidential election by hosting Saturday Night Live, and doing a comedy skit in which he fantasized about being President while sitting on the fake White House set of "The West Wing." This was all very funny (and creepy); it was also probably the most audacious merging of news and entertainment that has ever occurred on television. Then Gore made use of the Hollywood publicity and distribution system to produce a mass-appeal documentary on climate change issues, conveniently simplified, shortened and dumbed down for general audiences.

Al Gore owes his current resurgence (and his Oscar) to the blurred boundary between news and entertainment that he helped draw, and now, having benefited by doing so, he has the gall to blame the public and the media for it.

Al Gore hasn't yet entered the presidential sweepstakes, but he is already neck and neck with John Edwards in the hard-fought Outrageous Hypocrite competition, about a lap ahead of Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton. It's a tough field, but Gore has the look of a winner.