what Al Gore said is true.  Flying to Denver from Washington, D.C., does have a physiological effect on people who are not acclimatized to the higher altitude, particularly if you are going to immediately engage in stressful activity.

Apparently, President Obama flew into Denver at 2:00 PM Mountain Time and went to the debate which stated at 6:00 PM.  Governor Romney spent three days acclimating to the altitude.

I lived in Denver for four years and can attest that mental faculties are impaired due to the lesser oxygen that is absorbed into your blood stream through you lungs.  Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet above sea level, reduces the amount of oxygen that your body gets unless it has acclimatized.

This is not “altitude sickness” as the popular media would lead you to believe, but the effects are real; your blood is not boiling like those film clips show..  Don’t believe me?  Fly to Denver sometime and immediately go into a stressful meeting in which you are a key participant and follow it up with a night of eating and drinking.  Tell me how you feel the next morning.

I am not a big fan of Al Gore’s, but in this instance he is correct.

This doesn’t serve to excuse President Obama’s distracted performance in Denver since his campaign should have known about this and should have taken measures to account for it.  A simple schedule change that would have had Obama arriving in Denver one day before the scheduled debate could have had a dramatic effect on his, or any other person’s, acuity.