Al Gore: Denver’s altitude responsible for Obama’s weak debate

Al Gore attributed President Obama’s poor performance in Wednesday’s debate to Denver’s high altitude. (Charlie Neibergall/ AP)

Al Gore has proven he knows a lot about the environment. He even won a Nobel Prize in 2007 for his efforts to spread information about global warming and how to combat it.

Now, he has put that deep understanding of climate to a new use: justifying President Obama’s noticeably poor performance at the debate Wednesday.

Obama got some serious flak for how tongue-tied and uncool he appeared at the debate in Denver, with pundits chalking it up to incumbent arrogance, nervousness, among many other things.

The 2000 Democratic presidential candidate, though, had his own explanation. In a debate analysis on Current TV, Gore said that Obama may have choked because of Denver’s high altitude. The Mile High City sits 5,280 feet above sea level, and altitude sickness is a common result of breathing air with lower oxygen content.

“I’m going to say something controversial here,” the Huffington Post reported Gore said, “Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet, and you only have a few hours to adjust. I don’t know… Maybe.”

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Obama’s performance picks up in next week’s sea-level debate in New York.