Tipper and Al Gore: What's the Deal with the Gore Separation?

Tipper and Al Gore are separating and the reporting of such is news in spite of the fact there is no salicious gossip attached to it. Respected media outlets have reported the separation and stuck to the facts. The Associated Press, for example, chose to focus their article on the history, publicly and otherwise, of the two and their marriage.

Tipper and Al: The Way They Were

Tipper and her husband Al, national figures on the political stage as the ex-Vice President and Veep's wife back in the Clinton Administration, have a long history: 40 years, in fact.

Tipper and Al Gore were sweethearts in school, prom partners, proud parents of four children, and society poster children for 'enduring marriage and passionate election-year kisses." But Tipper and Al are human, and as such it looks like something has finally shaken the marriage that is making it hard for them to keep it together.

Separating, no light choice for ex-veep Al Gore and wife

Al Gore takes environmental responsibility to a whole new level, going so far as to write books and create documentaries about his passionate thoughts on it. That's not the sign of a man given to frivolty about something far more important: marriage.

So far Al Gore to be separating from--in his own words--"Someone I've loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior prom," is a pretty serious undertaking. That's why the mutual announcement by Tipper and Al is even more newsworthy.

Request by couple for respect of privacy: An illogical expectation by Al Gore?

Tipper was thrown into the national spotlight when her husband Al Gore ran for political office. Becoming famous wasn't necessarily something Tipper would have pursued otherwise. She did have her one moment of attention-getting behavior when she fought for warning labels on music that pushed the envelope in regards to violence and sexually-explicit material. But that's been it.

Her husband Al, on the other hand, has been in the spotlight a lot...and of his own choosing. That hasn't always been a favorable undertaking for Al, though, with some calling his environmental logic a bit of a stretch. This community no doubt growing larger and larger as the recent global warming false information reporting scandal evolved.

Privacy not possible for public figures: Tipper and Al take the 'mike'

So far Al Gore, at least, to expect a modicum of privacy about an impending divorce, seems illogical. The public is fair game when an environmentalist or politician wants to lasso them as support for their cause or own private ambitions. How, then, can they justify asking the public to butt out at other times?

And that, therein, lies the gist of the announcement: Al and Tipper know they can't expect privacy about a dissolving marriage, so they are heading it off at the pass by making an announcement of their own. But like with everything else, the public will wonder: what aren't they telling us?

Source
The Associated Press