Al Gore now has an Oscar.

And a grandson named Oscar.

Who could ask for anything more?

Al Gore.

The best ex-president who was never president could, in the blink of an eye, make one of the most interesting campaigns in American history even more interesting. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, along with millions of others, wonder: will he run? Will he use his green moment on the red carpet to snare the needed blue states and win the White House?

Only the Goracle knows.

The man who was prescient on climate change, the Internet, terrorism and Iraq admitted that maybe his problem had been that he was too far ahead of the curve. He has realized at a conference that “there’re ideas that are mature, ideas that are maturing, ideas that are past their prime and a category called ‘predawn.’

“And all of a sudden it hit me,” he told John Heilemann of New York Magazine last year. “Most of my political career was spent investing in predawn ideas! I thought, Oh, that’s where I went wrong.”

Naturally, as Al Gore basked in the glory of the Oscars February 25, Democrats wondered: Is the chubby guy filling out the Ralph Lauren three-piece tux a mature idea or an idea that’s past its prime?

With Hillary Clinton overproduced and Barack Obama an unfinished script, maybe it’s time to bring the former vice president out of turnaround.

Hillary’s henchmen try to prognosticate the Goracle’s future by looking at his waistline, according to Newsday; they think if he’s going to run, he’ll get back to fighting weight.

With her own talent for checking the weathervane, Hillary co-opted Gore’s global warming mantra right after the Oscars, talking about the environment throughout upstate New York. Given his past competition with Hillary, Gore must have delighted in seeing his star rise in Hollywood as hers dimmed.

If he waits too long to enter the race, all the usual consultants will be booked - which would actually be a boon for Gore, since his strategists in 2000 made him soft-pedal the environment, the very issue that makes him seem most authentic. The same material that once made his image-makers yawn just won his movie an Academy Award.

But what’s going on in Al Gore’s head? Like Jeb Bush, Al Gore was the good son groomed by a famous pol to be president, only to have it snatched away by a black sheep who doesn’t even know the name of the general running Pakistan.

It must be excruciating not only to lose a presidential election you’ve won, because the Supreme Court turned partisan and stopped the vote, but to then watch the madness of King George and Tricky Dick II, as they misled their way into serial catastrophes.

Even though Dick Cheney finally got close to combat in Afghanistan, his explosive brush with a suicide bomber has not served as a wake-up call about the danger of Osama bin Laden’s staying on the lam, and Afghanistan’s slipping back into the clutches of the Taliban and al-Qaida while the U.S. remains mired in the Iraq war.

A reporter asked Tony Snow Tuesday what the attack on the Bagram Air Base that targeted the vice president and killed more than 20 people said about the strength of the Taliban.

“I’m not sure it says anything,” Snow replied.

Gore must be pleased that he’s been vindicated on so many fronts, yet it still must disturb a Nobel Peace Prize nominee to hear the White House spouting dangerous nonsense. He must sometimes - if not all the time - imagine how much safer the world would be if he were president.

The George W. Bush-Dick Cheney era has been all about dragging the country into the past, getting back the presidential powers yanked away after Watergate, settling scores from an old war, suppressing needed scientific and environmental advances.

Instead of aiming for the stars, the greatest power on earth is bogged down in poorly navigated conflicts with ancient tribes and brutes in caves.

Surely, the Goracle, an aficionado of futurism, must be stewing about all the time and money and good will wasted with a Vietnam replay and a scolding social policy designed to expunge the Age of Aquarius.

When he’s finished Web surfing, tweaking his PowerPoint and BlackBerrying, what goes through his head? Does he blame himself? The voting machines? Ralph Nader? Robert Shrum? Naomi Wolf? Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.?

With the red carpet rolled up, the tux at the cleaner’s, and the gold statuette on the director’s mantle, not his, the Goracle is at his Nashville mansion, contemplating how to broker his next deal.

Will he cast himself as the savior of the post-George W. Bush era, or will the first Gore in the Oval Office be Karenna, mother of Oscar?