Sure, he’s won every award known to man except the Olympic gold. (Unless he gets into wrestling or weight lifting, that honor seems beyond even his reach.)

But the main achievement of Al Gore is not his comeback from having the White House snatched away, not his Oscar or even his sharing of the Nobel Peace Prize, announced today.

The real phenomenon of Al Gore is how connected he has become despite (and because of) his losing the presidency.

Gore has forged strong bonds not only in politics, science and the international environmental movement, but in finance, high-tech and Hollywood.

Dedicated trackers of Muckety will delight in Richistan, by Robert Frank, who writes the Wealth Report column for The Wall Street Journal.

Frank’s premise - and he provides a great deal of evidence to back it up - is that the wealthy have become a separate country within a country. They share a common language and common economy, and they fraternize in places where hoi polloi aren’t allowed to step foot.

One of our favorite examples, described at length in Frank’s book, is the Yellowstone Club, which bills itself as “the world’s only private ski and golf community.” Members include Bill Gates, Peter Chernin and Dan Quayle.