At Last, Gore Gets to the Oval Office, but It’s on ‘SNL’

NEW YORK -- Poking fun at his reputation for stiffness, not to mention his narrow loss of the presidency, former Vice President Al Gore completed a string of appearances on comedy shows Saturday by hosting “Saturday Night Live,” which for years won laughs at his expense.

Gore made light of his lingering public kiss with his wife, Tipper, during the 2000 Democratic convention, compared the process of picking a running mate to the reality TV show “The Bachelor” -- bonding with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) over a glass of champagne in a hot tub -- and got to play president with the cast of “The West Wing,” enviously trying out Martin Sheen’s Oval Office chair.

“The good news about not being president is that I have my weekends free,” Gore declared in his monologue opening the 90-minute show. “The bad news is that my weekdays are also free.”

On the same stage where cast member Darrell Hammond often portrayed a dull, zombie-like Gore, Gore embraced such a routine himself.

“Maybe at times I was a little wooden and stiff and ... people said I was patronizing,” Gore told a receptive studio audience before explaining to them, in his most patronizing voice, that “patronizing of course means talking to people like they’re stupid.”

But if Gore spent most of the show following the tradition of politicians embracing the jokes normally directed at them, he did get to skewer a Republican as well -- playing Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott in a skit parodying the Senate leader’s attempts to apologize for remarks praising the segregationist 1948 presidential campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). “As long as I am in office,” said Gore, portraying Lott, “we will leave no white person behind.”

After keeping a low profile following his defeat two years ago, Gore has been making the rounds of TV shows of late -- largely to promote two books he wrote with his wife, “Joined at the Heart” and “The Spirit of Family” -- but also perhaps testing the political waters before saying whether he will again seek the presidency in 2004.

In addition to doing traditional talk show interviews with the likes of Katie Couric, Barbara Walters and Larry King, Gore has appeared on shows known more for one-liners and slapstick skits than policy statements -- trading quips with David Letterman, John Stewart and Conan O’Brien.

There is a long history of politicians using such shows to soften their images, from Richard Nixon’s “Sock it to me!” on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” decades ago to Bill Clinton’s playing his saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show in 1992. Gore is not the first would-be president to accept an invitation to host “SNL” either.

The politico hosts have ranged from liberals George McGovern and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. to conservative Steve Forbes, an uncomfortable-looking host whose 1996 appearance prompted a protest from one of the musical guests -- the bassist for the group Rage Against the Machine hurled a shredded American flag into Forbes’ dressing room.

One of the more successful politician performers was Arizona Sen. John McCain, who this fall quipped that if Barbra Streisand could dabble in politics, he could dabble in her trade -- and promptly crooned for the national TV audience.

Gore shared the stage with his wife in two skits, confessing in one -- as Tipper displayed a photo of him both bearded and bloated -- that perhaps he did overeat a bit after losing the presidency to George W. Bush.

One running gag was that Gore may indeed have found losing harder than he let on, as when he wistfully tried out Sheen’s prop Oval Office chair in the “West Wing” skit.

“I guess while you were vice president you never got to sit in it,” Sheen said. “No -- no I did not,” said Gore, who seemed reluctant to give up the seat.

“Well,” said another cast member, “he did win the popular vote.”