"Unable to endure the aspect
of the being I had created,
I rushed out of the room..."
– Dr. Frankenstein

Al Gore's been so busy re-inventing himself, it's a wonder he ever got around to inventing the Internet.

He's the amalgamated man, a shameless shape-shifter, positioned somewhere betweenWoody Allen's Zelig, a character who takes on the characteristics of anyone he happens to be with at the time, and Peter Seller's Chauncy Gardener, whose clueless persona was mistaken for political wisdom.

If we were waiting for a celebrity example of the Jewish fable of the Golem [see issue #169] Gore fits the bill. The Golem myth involved bringing to life an unformed mass of clay that would operate as a man, move stiffly and become a world leader. In one form of the story, a secret group of rabbis uses the kabbalistic book, Sefer Yezirah (Book of Creation), to enliven and control their creation.

Gore's choice of the Orthodox Jewish Joe Lieberman certainly enlivened his campaign, butlet's not take this parable too literally. The reason the Gore = Golem analogy intrigues me is because it is a reflection of our society.

In the book Faded Mozaic, author Christopher Clausen says religion and culture have become mix-and-match strip mines of "counterfeit identities."

"A great many people without much confidence search television, the shopping malls, the literature of self-help, the Internet until they find a mass-produced simulacrum of their own identity, and as a result end up seeming very much alike."

OK, I didn't really read the book, just the review in the Wall Street Journal. But I really like that word "simulacrum."

The point is, instead of seriously asking "who am I?" people dip into a handy bone-yard of snap-on personalities. It's Borgs and 'Bots in Legoland, and Gore is the national example.

Raised on a Tennessee farm, the son of a senator, groomed at St. Albans and Harvard, you'd think Gore would be ready for the international stage. But one of his problems is he hasn't had enough face time with the little people. Columnist Joe Sobran said Gore's chief contact with ordinary people occurred when he called for room service.

And somewhere along the line, he started patching together identities.

At first, The Door was delighted to hear the vice president was a Baptist. Baptists are easy to make fun of, especially since Tipper was campaigning against explicit lyrics in rock albums. But later, there was Al on TV toasting Chinese leader Li Peng with what looked like champaign.The only more un-Baptistic thing he could have done was dance with the guy.

Then Gore wrote his ecology book Earth in the Balance celebrating Gaia the earth goddess. So we didn't know whether to poke fun at him for his Baptist beliefs, or strafe him for his New-Agey tree hugging.

Actually, my first clue something was amiss was shortly before Clinton selected Gore as his running mate. They were walking toward an airplane together, and Gore looked like Barney Fife trying to walk like John Wayne. Does he even know how to be a person, I wondered?

Everything I have observed since then has only strengthened that first impression.

When his campaign hired feminist consultant Naomi Wolf for $15,000 a month to teach Alhow to be an alpha male, I knew my suspicions were confirmed.

Conservative political pundit George Will observed that Gore has adopted serial identities – Alpha Male Al, Earth Tones Al, Populist Al. We could add more – Palm Pilot Al, Eddie Haskell Al, Al in touch with his inner Nerd. What's next, Poetry Slam Al?

Even David Letterman said the problem people have with Gore is he's like clay: "They don't know how he will be molded on any given day. It really doesn't seem like there is a guy in there. They say, 'Today we want you to be this certain way'....next day he's, like...Don King."

Gore likes to make up stories, too. Remember his claim that He and Tipper were the inspiration for the novel Love Story?

He reminds me of a kid in my first-grade class in St. Peter, Minn. His parents made him wear a suit with a white shirt and tie to school. Every day he would have some new story about an imagined exploit of his family. This was during World War II. One day his father had shot down one of Hitler's Messerschmidts. Next, it would be an uncle who destroyed several Japanese Zeros. Later he'd claim he saved a neighborhood dog or cat from certain death.

All his stories were invented. But it was more than just lying. He was trying to gain an identity for himself through what he was hearing on the radio. His own soul was so impoverished that he was forced to create meaning for himself by stealing from everyone and everything in his environment.

He, like Gore, was a child of privilege. And, come to think of it, he had a goofy walk, too. In reality he was a lonely shell, a sham, a pretence, desperately trying to find out who he really was.

He was a Golem without a rabbi. I don't know what happened to him, but I pray he and Al Gore understand that the journey to wholeness begins at the cross, by facing our own emptiness and exchanging that empty identity for Christ's resurrection.