What If Al Gore Had Been President On 9-11?
Steven Litvintchouk
become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
(Don't blame me for this speculation--it's written by Ted Rall, who is
in fact a hard-core left-winger. But a smart one.)
PRESIDENT GORE: A LOOK BACK
By Ted Rall
DAYTON, OHIO--Few political observers anticipated the widespread
resentment that followed Al Gore's controversial assumption of the
presidency in December 2000.
Although the ensuing recount ultimately gave Florida to Gore by a
comfortable thousand-vote margin, Republicans refused to accept the
results. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh continued to refer to Gore as
"Vice President Gore"
and "Resident-in-Chief" and listed the time remaining in Gore's first
term as "days left in captivity for the American people."
Republican candidate George W. Bush, meanwhile, refused to concede
defeat. "Make no mistake," the former Texas governor declared from
self-proclaimed
"internal exile" in Crawford, Texas, "that man will never be my president."
The GOP filed a slew of lawsuits challenging the election results, and
right-wing militia groups issued dark threats about overthrowing Gore's
"illegal junta." Despite Gore's attempts to govern from the center--he
appointed several Republicans to his cabinet, including Secretary of
Defense Colin Powell--Congressional Republicans and their conservative
Democratic allies stonewalled early Gore Administration attempts to
deliver on key campaign promises. The Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto
treaty on global
warming. Bills to slash federal taxes for poor and middle-class workers,
ban oil drilling in national wildlife refuges and crack down on
corporate crime failed to make it out of Republican-controlled
committees in the House.
Senator Trent Lott let the President know that he could expect more of
the same in the future: "It is my party's duty to represent the 48
percent of the voters who did not support Al Gore, and that's exactly
what we're
going to do," he said. Gore's polls, already falling due to the lagging
economy, hit rock bottom in the weeks after the September 11th attacks.
"People rightly blamed the Commander-in-Chief for not doing anything to
intercept planes that
had clearly been hijacked and for ignoring warnings of an imminent threat,"
says a GOP pollster. "But concern about incompetence quickly segued into
the 'wimp thing.'
Disgust at Gore's cowardice became widespread when he abandoned
Washington to
the terrorists and flew off to hide in that silo under Nebraska....
In a bizarre and cynical ploy to exploit 9-11, the President attempted
to turn things around by dispatching troops to one war after
another--and made a
mess of each one. Choosing to ignore Pakistan's role as chief host and
financier of Al Qaeda, Gore waged a strange too-little-too-late bombing
campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Terrorist mastermind Osama
bin Laden escaped. Night after night David Letterman mocked Gore's
pledge to capture the Saudi dissident: "Dead or alive? Shuck and jive is
more like it."
Gore's lack of military experience led him to go along with CIA schemes
to bribe Afghan warlords. "From the Afghan perspective, the warlords
were even worse than the Taliban," says an expert on Central Asia. "They
should have
bombed both." In 2002 The New York Times revealed that oil companies with
close political connections to the Democratic Party had schemed with
Gore to
run an oil pipeline across Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to
Pakistan--and that
this was why he had attacked Afghanistan and cozied up with the Pakistani
dictatorship.
Tens of thousands of veterans marched on Washington, screaming "no blood
for
oil" and Senator Orrin Hatch suggested that "a president who wages war
to line
the pockets of his golfing buddies merits impeachment." Incredibly, the
next
move of the man dubbed "Gore out of control" by Fox News was to declare an
unprovoked war on Iraq. "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction,
he's
an evil dictator and he's a threat to world peace," Gore railed to a joint
session of Congress.
When the United Nations refused to support Gore's request for an
international
coalition, even Congressional Democrats decided that they had had enough of
their bellicose leader, and joined their counterparts across the aisle.
"There's no proof that Saddam Hussein has WMDs," declared Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle. "Until that changes, we have no grounds for a
preemptive
strike--an act that violates every precept of international law."
Nonetheless, Gore relied on the War Powers Act to order in the Marines.
As we
know, Saddam Hussein didn't use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons to
defend his dying regime. American forces never found any. And news soon
began
leaking that Gore was awarding lucrative Iraqi rebuilding contracts to oil
companies that had contributed to his 2000 campaign. A Gallup poll
showed that
88 percent of Americans considered Gore a liar, and that 79 percent favored
his removal from office and prosecution for the wanton murder of
thousands of
Iraqis.
As Iraq degenerated into sectarian violence amid growing signs of a
possible
radical Islamic revolution, Gore brazenly categorized the mayhem he had
wrought on an innocent people as liberation. "They don't know it yet," he
proclaimed, "but they'll thank us for this someday." When it comes to
Teflon,
recent events demonstrate that Ronald Reagan had nothing on Al Gore. It
turns
out, for example, that among the more than 600 Afghans illegally held at a
U.S. base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba are three children, aged 13 to 15.
Meanwhile, Democrats have just announced plans to hold the latest national
convention in their party's history, in early September in New York, so
that
President Gore can capitalize on the memorials for the third anniversary of
the 9-11 attacks. The 2004 confab will end on September 10th, allowing
Gore to
shuttle back and forth between Ground Zero and Madison Square Garden.
True, Gore's behavior has given him single-digit popularity ratings--but
he's
still president. What will it take for the American people to turn this
madman
out on his ear once and for all? It's impossible to say. As things stand
now,
he could put babies on the White House menu and claim he was fighting
overpopulation.
(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American
Occupation
of Afghanistan," an analysis of the underreported Trans-Afghanistan
Pipeline
project and the real motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering
information is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)
-- Steven L.
gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk
>In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
>become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
9/11 would not have happened if Gore had been President.
Gore did not have the same connections as Bush.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roger
news:3qHdc.2430$l75....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
> become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
> (Don't blame me for this speculation--it's written by Ted Rall, who is
> in fact a hard-core left-winger. But a smart one.)
>
>
> PRESIDENT GORE: A LOOK BACK
>
> By Ted Rall
From http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/03/11_rall.html
[...]
BUZZFLASH: Most Americans, polls show, believe the 9/11 hijackers were
Iraqis, yet none of them were? How did the Bush cartel propaganda trump the
facts, especially since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis?
RALL: That's incredible. And the other 4 were Egyptian. It all goes to show
that the more often you repeat a lie, the more people will believe it. Many
Americans still believe that there's a link between Saddam Hussein and
Al-Qaeda even though it's been 100% proven to be bullshit. Why does the
Administration have to make stuff up about Saddam? I mean, it's not like
he's a lovable character. But the Bushies always opt for overkill -- and it
always seems to work.
[...]
BUZZFLASH: You don't go into the religious component of Bush's justification
for war. But clearly he views this as a Crusade. Isn't that another factor
driving his desire to conquer the non-believers?
RALL: You know, George W. Bush clearly does not believe in God. He's an
atheist. He throws God's name around a lot, as do most hypocrites and
charlatans, to appeal to people of faith. If George W. Bush truly believed
that he was going to be judged for all eternity after his death for his
deeds, he wouldn't act the way he does. But there are obviously those in his
administration, like Ashcroft, who really do believe that they're engaged in
an epic clash of civilizations and cultures. Religion is a part of that, but
faith isn't. You can't really believe in God and pursue the kind of actions
this administration is.
Peacenik
news:3qHdc.2430$l75....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
Gore would have fought terrorism WITHOUT restricting our rights. He would
have used the world unity after 9/11 to fight al-Qaeda instead of making a
crusade into Iraq. He would have skilfully and successfully led this country
and gained the cooperation of the world. He would have captured bin Laden by
now, and he would be well on the way to a resounding re-election in
November, with a completely demoralized Religious Right becoming a distant
memory.
--
Peacenik
Bill Gamelson
>have used the world unity after 9/11 to fight al-Qaeda instead of making a
>crusade into Iraq. He would have skilfully and successfully led this
country
>and gained the cooperation of the world. He would have captured bin Laden
by
>now, and he would be well on the way to a resounding re-election in
>November, with a completely demoralized Religious Right becoming a distant
>memory.
How do you know all this?
Peacenik
news:m2Idc.14429$c92...@newssvr22.news.prodigy.com...
Because Gore is smart, a good guy and a liberal. Bush, on the other hand, is
stupid, a bad guy and a conservative (but I repeat myself).
--
Peacenik
SemiScholar
<sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote:
>In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
>become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
>(Don't blame me for this speculation--it's written by Ted Rall, who is
>in fact a hard-core left-winger. But a smart one.)
This is hilarious. It obviously flew right over your head. Read it
agin - it's a devastating indictment of the right-wingers and George W
Bush. It takes everything Bush did and imagines Gore doing the same
things - but that's not the hilarious part. The rapier wit comes in
the descriptions of how the right-wingers would respond to a Democrat
if he did the exact same things as Bush has done. And I think Rall is
pretty much right on. The hypocritical right-wingers would scream
bloody murder, threaten revolution and impeachment. But when Bush
does these things, the right wingers actually *defend* him.
LOL!
And Steven totally missed the point.
Arne Langsetmo
if a _Democrat_ had done exactly what "Whistle-Ass" has done.
Just showing you what hypocrites the Rethuglicans are. . . .
HTH.
Cheers,
-- Arne Langsetmo
Johnny Asia
<sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote:
>In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
>become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
he would have been prepared:
11 Months Before 9/11 the Military Conducted a Simulation of Plane
Crashing into the Pentagon, October 24-26 2000.
Here's a link Democrats.com posted in May, 2002 regarding Condi Rice's
claim that no one ever expected the Pentagon to be hit by a civilian
airliner. http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7382
"According to the official government Web site of the Military
District of Washington, the Pentagon ITSELF planned in detail how it
would respond to just such a scenario from October 24-26 2000. And
this was no low-level exercise, since it took place in the Office of
the Secretaries of Defense conference room! Folks, we must have found
something REALLY EXPLOSIVE - because not only did Rove & Rumsfeld &
Rice scrub this article - they temporarily scrubbed the whole Military
District of Washington Web site"
Luckily Democrats.com kept a mirror copy kept a mirror copy
http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7382
+
"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw
The First Church of Common Sense
Want to know what's REALLY going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html
Cowboys and Idiots: The Reagan Administration
Ronnies' "Brave freedom fighters" are now Bushs'
"evildoers" who "hate our freedoms".
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/reagan.html
The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
The God-Awful Truth about Christian Zionism
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html
OutsourceBush2004
--
"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the
grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He
ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to
stop 9/11," Clarke told CBS.
--
"That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true.
We were taken for a ride," Kwasniewski said Thursday (March 18, 2004).
Aleksander Kwasniewski, Poland's President
"Steven Litvintchouk" <sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote in message
news:3qHdc.2430$l75....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
Bill Gamelson
is
>>stupid, a bad guy and a conservative (but I repeat myself).
You didn't answer the question. But then, Liberals aren't expected to be
that smart.
z
> In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
> become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
> (Don't blame me for this speculation--it's written by Ted Rall, who is
> in fact a hard-core left-winger. But a smart one.)
that was a pretty good read man.
thanks Steve L
-z@yada
Fair & Balanced Trebor ©
<sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote:
>In a parallel universe, here is what might have happened had Al Gore
>become President instead of Bush, and then faced the 9-11 atrocity.
9-11 never would have happened had Gore been allowed to assume the
office that he won by over half a million votes. He never would have
gone on the longest vacation in history. He would have been on the
job, got the warnings, sheken the trees, and stopped the plot. The
World Trade Center would still be standing if Gore was in the White
House today. I know that for certain, and more than ever now.
Harry Grogan
Bird dogs fly south for the winter too!!
Harry Grogan
Smart??Oh yeah.He did invent the internet!!Also,after lessons from
his lesbian tutor he's now an "Alpha Male"!!