"Mr. Gore likes to say 'our democracy has been hacked by big money,' but he has done some hacking himself..."

"... in his many rent-seeking activities. His Current TV payday, partly at the expense of the Qataris, partly at the expense of U.S. cable subscribers and shareholders, must be especially piquant to Americans exhausted by Mr. Gore's incessant moralizing. What would be nice to know, and what a full airing of the legal record might show, and is at what point Current stopped being a sincere experiment in liberal news and entertainment. At what point did it morph into a scheme to shake down TV distributors and flip the carriage rights for what BusinessWeek estimates was $450 million in profit to Mr. Gore and partners."

From "Al Gore vs. Al Jazeera vs. the Truth/How the ex-veep came by his cable TV windfall remains heavily redacted," in the Wall Street Journal, where you might have to Google some of the quotes text to get a link that works for you.

ADDED: If I read the article correctly, the contract had Gore et al. receiving $500 million and only $65 million has yet to be paid. By litigating for the last 13% of what was due under the contract, Gore lights a fire under al Jazeera to show that the terms of the contract have not been fulfilled, that the whole contract is void, and to get back some or all of the 87% that has been paid. Shouldn't Gore want to keep that door closed? But Gore isn't only putting $435 million at risk. He's also putting his reputation up for attacks, such as the one in the linked WSJ article. If he's a big huckster, he's got an especially big stake in hiding his hucksterism, unless he's retiring from all of that and doesn't give a damn what history thinks of him. Meanwhile, al Jazeera has an opportunity to upgrade its reputation by arguing that it paid most of the money and held a small portion in escrow to motivate Gore to perform his contractual obligations. What were those obligations? Well, something that at least seemed worth $500 million to al Jazeera.