Kick Me While I'm Down, Why Don't You, Al

As if to tease all of us who have seen him mature into the nation's leading liberal, Al Gore has now sensibly come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

"Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don't understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage," he says on the video, which appears on his Current TV network. "Shouldn't we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to ones partner regardless of sexual orientation?"

Gore is allowed to do this, of course, because he's no longer in the political arena, and because of the weird constraints of political life that force you away from tough but sensible decisions. In a time with such a leadership deficit from the Democrats in the Congress, you almost get the sense that