He has ridden the mighty moon worm, too

Former Vice President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He can hang it next to his Oscar and his Emmy.

Obviously I'm thrilled. Al Gore has been one of my political heroes since I was a kid. I read his book Earth in the Balance before he was even vice president, and it had a sizable impact on my political development (I was about 14 I think).

He deserves it, of course. But it's a reminder that he deserved the presidency, too. And got enough votes for it in spite of huge obstacles--namely, a years-long smear campaign on the part of the media. The cattiness continues to this day. (Bob Somerby, at the Daily Howler, has been incomparable in documenting the ongoing media war on Gore.)

They made up false statements like "I invented the internet" to accuse him of saying. They made fun of his suits. More recently they've taken to calling him fat.

From Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews and everywhere in between, our allegedly mainstream opinion makers loathed Al Gore so much they abetted the rise of our worst president, a man who is now hated by the country and destined for history's trash heap, a man who has done damage we might never be able to reverse.

Meanwhile, too many of us on the left fell into the inexcusably intellectually lazy trap of thinking it didn't matter who was president and that both candidates were basically the same. I recall a Rage Against the Machine video that morphed Gore's face with Bush's, something I can't imagine they would ever do now (God, I hope).

Well, could the contrast now be stronger? We have a man who's just gotten (deservedly) the world's highest honor for making peace, and a man who lied the traumatized nation into, and refuses to end, the most moronic and misguided failed war in our history.

We could have had the peace guy. But he was too much of a nerd. There's a lesson here, somewhere, but I fully expect the elite cocktail party media not to learn it.

As Nick once said to Gatsby...Mr. Gore, you're worth the whole damn bunch of 'em. And it's bittersweet to revel in your honor today because it reminds us of how different the history of the last seven years would have been if the honor you earned back then had not been stolen.