Al Gore & the Hard Foul

[Al Gore's] mid-career period was defined by his aggressive moderation and especially by his disastrous 1988 presidential campaign. He was like the basketball player sent into the game by his coaches — his were at the Democratic Leadership Council — to do nothing but commit fouls and injure the other team (but in this case his own team, in the sense that they were fellow Democrats). (Michael Tomasky in The New York Review of Books).