Just as an exercise, what do we think the last four years in the U.S. would have been like if Al Gore had become President? (I don’t mean to open up the Florida mess; suppose for the sake of argument Gore had won a slim but unquestioned majority.) What do we think Gore would have done differently? I’m starting with the assumption that, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, Gore’s impact on legislation would have been limited. He probably wouldn’t have asked for a tax reduction, but he wouldn’t have been able to keep the Republicans from passing one. I don’t think he would have invaded Iraq, but I’m not sure he would have booted the Taliban out of Afghanistan after 9-11 either. What would we be saying now about “President” Gore?
He’s a lying bastard and his re-election is the worst possible thing that could happen to the nation!
Sorry, that was reflexive just from hearing it so often lately.
I think people would be complaining more about Lieberman, kind of like how most of the Bush admin complaints before 9/11 were against Cheney. It’s kind of hard to feel one way or another about Gore himself.
Given the Clinton Admin’s pretty effective anti-terrorism efforts, I think a Gore Admin, having some institutional continuity, might have thwarted the 9/11 attacks.
“Institutional continuity” - sounds like it could do anything you wanted it to do.
Just curious, what were these “effective efforts” of which you speak? What would Mr. Gore have been made aware or knew of that wasn’t shared with Mr. Bush?
Well, I doubt Al Gore would have gotten a PDB entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States” and then decided to spend another month on vacation.
As for the Clinton Administration’s extensive anti-terrorism efforts, there’s a good list right here. Despite all the attempts by the right-wingers to paint Clinton as weak on terrorism, they just can’t bury the facts of history…
“Facts of history”. Certainly has a ring to it.
Oh, off the top of my head:
- First WTC bombing.
- Uss Cole
- Khobar Towers
- Kenya.
Granted, not in the US, but hardly worthy of praise for fighting terrorism.
9/11 was so meticulously planned, and involved so few people, that its detection and prevention would have only been possible at almost theindividual CIA agent level - I very much doubt the incumbent President’s actions could really have influenced anything to the extent that 9/11 didn’t happen. Afterwards Gore, like Bush, would almost certainly have invaded Afghanistan, riding the wave of sympathy and admiration fom the rest of the world (including much of the Muslim world, who saw the Taleban as dangerous, backwards fanatics as well).
The difference, of course, is Iraq. If Gore had suggested a regime change in order to democratise a major Middle Eastern state, his party and his cabinet would have had some pretty strong words. The only way he could have got a green light was by submitting a detailed, long term plan to both Congress and the UN Security Council. After careful study of such a plan, only a majority view in both of those institutions that such an invasion was in the genuine interests of the Iraqi people would have turned the light green.
This would have kept the goodwill and admiration of the world. Instead, we got some Soviet-style anti-diplomacy and an utterly ill-conceived imbroglio with absolutely no plan whatsoever.
The order also included snatching OBL and bringing him to the U.S. for trial. The problem with the idea of killing OBL was that Clinton insisted the CIA guarantee OBL was at the target and that civilians would not be killed. Clinton was facing problems with impeachment at the time. He did not need an attack that missed OBL and killed civilians. The order was given but impossible to carry out. For more on this topic, read Ghost War
I can’t say that Kuro5hin is an unbiased source, but on the other hand I’m not criticizing Clinton’s actions. Nothing happens in a vacuum and he did what seemed best with a problem that did not have top priority at the time. Hind sight tells us that was a mistake; nothing new.
I think it is quite possible that with Gore in office, the 9/11 attack would have been prevented. For one reason, I think Gore had a better understanding of the nature of the enemy. For another, as rjung pointed out, he would not have ignored a briefing entitled “Bin Laden determined to attack in US”. (And it would probably have been a better briefing – Gore would not have insisted that the briefings be kept short.)
With Gore as President, we’d have had a completely different Cabinet. Seems likely that they’d have given international terrorism a higher priority. On Sept 10th, hadn’t Ashcroft released a list of goals, priorites, intentions (can’t remember what it was called)? And international terrorism wasn’t even on the list.
I think it is quite possible that with Gore as President, if the 9/11 attack had occurred, our immediate response would have been more effective. For one thing, I think we can be cirtain that, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Gore would have dropped it immediately and turned his attention to the crisis. Then there’s the whole question of why we didn’t respond to the situation as soon as the first plane went off course and stopped responding, let alone after several planes had gone off course and stopped responding. I don’t know if whatever went wrong was the fault of the Bush administration. Seems possible that it was, and that a Gore administration might have avoided whatever errors were made.
If the 9/11 attack had occured, President Gore would not have seized upon it as an excuse to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. He might have attacked Afganistan, or he might have sent forces to attack Al Quada camps and bases without attacking any nation. If he attacked Afganistan, he would not have subseqently let it go to pot while starting a new war elsewhere.
As President, Gore would not have frittered away the post-9/11 sympathy and good will of the world. Whatever he decided to do about the 9/11 attack, he’d have built international support for it, as Bush 41 did for the Gulf War.
If the 9/11 attack had occured with Gore as President, some heads would have rolled. Several people would have been found responsible for dropping the ball, and would have been fired.
If Gore had been President for the last 4 years, I think the economy would be in better shape.
President Gore would not have imposed the global gag rule. He would not have funded abstinence only education. He would not have seered money to faith-based organizations. He would have been much less bad for the environment. Whatever judicial appointments he made would have been more to my liking.
I often think about how close it was. If Florida had managed to hold an honest, glitch-free election (or if the nation had found a way to prevent Florida’s botched election from allowing victory to be handed the candidate with the 2nd highest number of votes), Gore would have been President. The Iraq war would not have happened. Those 1100+ American fighting men and women would not have been killed. All those thousands of Iraqis would not have been killed. Many other things would be less bad, but the unjustified Iraq War is the worst consequence of the botched 2000 election.
Well, first Gore would have asked for recounts of votes in key counties in a state where Bush seemed to have won, but was close enough for a recount. As it looked increasingly like Gore had, in fact, taken the popular vote in that state, the right-wing Supreme Court would have ordered the count stopped, thereby handing the election to the Governor of that state’s brother.
Gore would then concede instead of demanding a recount of the whole state…
Oh, wait…