March 25, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1428

LONDON: At this year’s Oscars, at centre stage sat former Vice President Al Gore. Before An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about his quest to raise awareness about climate change, Gore’s pop-cultural heights included appearances on the sketch-comedy show on Saturday Night Live and the cartoon Futurama. At his appearance before Congress this week, everyone was clamouring for a look. He’s grown to full-blown celebrity status, and anticipation of another run for the presidency is so thick that Gore could include in his Oscar appearance a joke about the buzz.

However, observant audiences saw another notable winner this awards season. This time, it wasn’t a social crusader-turned-celebrity, but a celebrity-turned-social crusader.

Bono of U2 was given the NAACP Chairman’s Award in recognition of his work with the ONE Campaign, which pushes for large-scale solutions to the crises of extreme poverty and AIDS.

Bono’s speech was inspirational, lovely and urgent, but it was also a masterful piece of political theatre.

The self-described “very white” musician was savvy and on-message, keen to the history and priorities of his nearly entirely African-American audience.

It felt a bit like a good stump speech: well-dropped laugh lines, impassioned applause points, a canny thank-you to a political partner in the audience (US Rep. Barbara Lee from Oakland, California), and, of course, a final call-to-action that urged the audience to get involved.

Now, the 2008 Presidential race already has its “rock star” in Barack Obama, who was given an NAACP Chairman’s Award in 2005.

The race may eventually have a movie star in Al Gore. Like another politically prominent US politician, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bono wouldn’t be eligible for the presidency (since he was born in Ireland).

He won’t be throwing his oversized sunglasses into the ring. But there’s no denying that he’s proven himself quite a good political player.

Rockstars and actors are better at this sort of thing. I predict the Bono/Oprah ticket would sweep to a landslide victory.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service