But now the 81-year-old company is learning a thing or two itself from its new purchase: how to better manage brands like Winnie the Pooh or the new pirate characters that crept out of Disney's successful 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean.

FORBES: Baby Lessons

Of course, those promoting the network's penetration of the United States -- among them Mr. Gore, who will get a board seat on the new network to be formally known as Al Jazeera America -- tend to pooh-pooh concerns about the Arabic-language mother ship's service to the jihadi cause.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Al Gore Profits from the Stealth Jihad