How do you really feel when you see a former American vice-president and candidate for the US presidency standing in front of hundreds of Hollywood stars, saying thank you to millions of television viewers while holding a little gold statue that represents the prestigious Academy Award? Numb, that’s a possibility, and confused is another!

So the next question: Was Al Gore a good actor while vice president or a romantic that ended up as a politician? And now more questions arise: Have we become so cynical not to see that there are politicians that really do believe what they say and they actually do something about it? Do I have an answer? Actually I have more questions and one of the main questions is what Al Gore was thinking when he was receiving the Academy Award for a documentary about global warming?

The man was Vice President and candidate for the President’s seat in one of the very few countries that refuse to sign the Kyoto. Remember, the Kyoto protocol is just the beginning, so what is he going to change now he’s out of politics that he didn’t change for the ten years when he was in power or at least …next to it. More importantly, what does he expect George W. Bush to change where Bill Clinton failed?

I’m trying not to be too cynical, but it is getting harder and harder! Let’s see, Mr. Al Gore suddenly discovered that global warming is the real terrorist and we had better do something here and now. Is he going to start going around the globe showing the documentary in which he was involved? During his ten-years in the vice presidency, he met nearly everybody who has any meaning in the future of this planet, from politicians to scientists, even the Pope himself - just to have a good relationship with God; these people didn’t meet a weird ecologist hippie, but the Vice President of the most powerful country in the world. I’m sure they took him seriously and they will be willing to return some favors to the almighty dominator of the world.

The man is friends with the former President of the United States and his wife, who could become the next President of the United States. Will he demand from them a better attitude to global warming? And that’s the point I had to run to the website of Mrs. Hillary Clinton and find a lot of…generalities about global warming but nothing drastic! And that was not exactly a disappointment, I was expecting it.

But let’s leave Mr. Al Gore aside, why did the Academy award him? Because they wanted to prove that they are traditionally democrats and supporters of the ecology movement? Did they want to show their worry and support? And if they really do so, how do they think that an Oscar is going to change anything? Al Gore wasn’t exactly one of the…brightest Vice Presidents and often he became the center of sarcasm to all the cartoonists around the world, with quotes like, “I discovered the Internet”. Do they think that awarding him with the highest honor that usually goes to people of cinema that people will start taking him seriously? The one who definitely lost out is the environmental movement.

I have nothing against Al Gore, actually I never had an opinion about him, after all his public life was always being overshadowed by Bill Clinton, but this award naturally made me notice him again and start…asking questions. I’m not sure if I will ever get any answers, I suppose Mr. Gore will find his way to exchange the goods of the Oscar award and we will all forget that it happened.

The irony is that the United States had an actor for a president, an actor that dreamt about the Academy Award and never got it, and then you get the Clinton’s court jester who never dreamt to be an actor but ending up with an Academy Award!