Over the Top

"We must act now!" he cried. "Before it's too late!"

I eyed my fellows with embarrassment. What a drama queen. Or king, I suppose.

"Measured consideration is the thing," I purred, implicitly contrasting my calm, rational demeanor with his lunatic screeching. "Don't you think?"

He didn't. "The time for consideration, measured or otherwise, is past!" he shrieked. "Disaster is upon us!"

"But where is the solid evidence?" I asked calmly. "This is a matter for long and careful study. One does not want to leap too soon, only to find that the apparent terra firma is, in fact, a yawning crevasse." I noticed scattered appreciation for my clever figures of speech.

"Have you all gone mad?" he screamed, spraying spittle. "If we don't do something immediately, we are all quite definitely going to die! And you stand there spinning metaphors!"

"There is no consensus on this matter," I smiled, not unkindly. "In any case, God would never let that sort of thing happen. Unless He was punishing us for tolerating homosexuality or something. And I don't think there's any danger of that with this group, ha, ha!" It pays to lighten the mood sometimes.

"Consensus?" he howled. "Consensus? This isn't something you can take a vote on. Just look ..."

"Don't you think you're going a bit over the top?" I asked gently.

"You want over the top?" he snarled. "Try that ice-cold water that's pouring over the deck. That's sure over the top! Or try the great, big, gaping hole in the hull! That's a goddamn iceberg we just hit! Oh, God! 'Take a vacation,' they said. 'Book a cruise on The Titanic,' they said!"

"Oh, well," I replied dismissively. "I rest my case, then. If you're going to say naughty words, we can't credit a thing you say!"

Because Al Gore, in stating obvious truths, became impassioned and called bullshit bullshit, his comments have been trivialized by mainstream media as "a rant" (or, better, "a bullshit rant," which is classic projection) and "over the top."