Al Gore's Feeble Defense

Lloyd Grove laments Al Gore's feeble response to the "crazed sex poodle" allegations. Maybe he hopes that if he ignores them, they'll just go away.

Now, four weeks into his multimedia ordeal, Gore hasn’t managed to formulate an effective PR strategy to counter the toxic fallout polluting his once-gleaming image. And crisis managers say his passive stance is only fueling the problem. What’s more, he has yet to personally confront the allegations in a public forum, and refuses to take questions from the howling media mob during increasingly furtive speaking appearances. Inevitably, the ugly charges and Gore’s apparent evasiveness are harming his reputation.

“’Crazed sex poodle’ has got to be one of the great coinages of our time,” says Los Angeles-based crisis-communications expert Allan Mayer, who says that Gore, if blameless, should fight the charges, possibly by going on a respected morning television show opposite a tough interviewer “like Matt Lauer.” Mayer also advises Gore to file a libel suit against the National Enquirer, which broke the story, and his accusers. “Whenever you’re accused of anything these days, and it’s not true, you have to fire back with both barrels—give an unequivocal denial and, if possible, an explanation,” Mayer says. “I find it hard to understand why he wouldn’t do that, except for the fact that it might be true. From the way he’s been behaving, the only logical inference is that there must be at least some truth to these allegations.”