From what I can tell, it’s just one staffer who’s quoted. But at a moment when abortion-banning, gun-supporting, gay-baiting Chuck Hagel is suddenly the new darling of the left, it’s sweet to see someone still taking progressive beliefs seriously.

Plus, the schadenfreude. Oh, the schadenfreude.

Yesterday morning, the still shell shocked staff at Current TV was called to an all hands staff meeting at its San Francisco headquarters, which was teleconferenced to their offices in LA and NYC, to meet their new bosses…

“Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.

“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”…

“We do stories on the tax code, and he sells the network before the tax code kicked in?”

Jennifer Granholm was there too and reportedly piped up wanting to know whether she’d be getting a severance package. If we’re very lucky, soon she’ll be bringing her unique talents for governance to Washington D.C. as either energy secretary or, gulp, attorney general.

Via Newsbusters, enjoy as Geraldo Rivera describes the time Al Gore shamed him in the lobby of Fox News headquarters for having sold out his political principles for filthy lucre. Ahem. Exit quotation: “He took the short money from big oil.”

Update: Evidently it’s A-OK for Al Gore to betray his environmental beliefs for money because he’s had a rough life or something:

Though the deal’s been widely criticized on the right, most of my progressive friends have a more tolerant attitude towards the transaction: “After what happened to him,” in the recount of 2000, one friend remarked, “I’d forgive him almost anything.”A politically active environmentalist, too, was taking the news in stride: “I don’t think the community is too upset,” he said. “My personal sense is he got a good deal.”