# What Would Gore Have Done? September 11 mini-rant (long). **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 7, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788 "2002-06-07T04:00:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/21 "2002-06-07T16:11:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Now then, please fight my ignorance (those of you that seem to support Bush). Please explain how this is possible. [returning to the boards] I’m not sure that it is possible. (Fighting your ignorance, that is.) When read the OP I was impressed that the poster managed to say “President Gore” twelve times, while mentioning “President Bush” exactly none. Then again, this is his rant. But as I read on, I became somewhat depressed that not a single poster, on either side of the issue, said, “President Bush”. President Miss Cleo, President Harrison Ford, and President Tom Daschle were all granted the title, but not our sitting president. Totalling things up, Al (still not the president) Gore was granted the title 15 times, and mentioned by last name 31 more. President Bush was never mentioned by title, by was called by last name 29 times, and referred to as “Dubya” 7 more. Like it or not, George W. Bush is the President of the United States and will be for the foreseeable future. Next topic: “Ashcroft” is capitalized not out of respect, but out of the rules of grammar. [/returning to the boards] :wally ---
**Author:** ![stankow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@stankow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stankow)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/22 "2002-06-07T16:22:28Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by rjung_ > Or if it was Gore proposing the new “Homeland Defense” Cabinet office and the ensuing growth in government? (Of course, Al would have floated that balloon six months earlier, but that’s a different matter). > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by stankow_ > What in the nine worlds gives you the slightest idea that Al Gore would have wanted to create a brand-new Cabinet department with no appreciable use (at the time) two months into his presidency? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by zut_ > Proposals to elevate “Homeland Defense” to a cabinet position have been seriously floated only recently. June 2002 - six months = December 2001. Whether or not rjung’s assertion that Al Gore would have proposed a new cabinet position at that time is, of course, debatable, but he’d have had no need for psychic powers at that time. Ah. Now I see where **rjung** was coming from. Apply my argument from his previous point to that one: _ **This is a whole new world.** _ I know it sounds trite, but comparing Congressional approval of Bush’s activities post-September 11th to Congressional disapproval of, say, Clinton’s activities in Bosnia is apples and oranges. ---
**Author:** ![stankow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@stankow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stankow)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/23 "2002-06-07T16:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SouthernStyle \* > \*\*When read the OP I was impressed that the poster managed to say “President Gore” twelve times, while mentioning “President Bush” exactly none. Then again, this is his rant. > > But as I read on, I became somewhat depressed that not a single poster, on either side of the issue, said, “President Bush”. President Miss Cleo, President Harrison Ford, and President Tom Daschle were all granted the title, but not our sitting president. > \*\* Ahem. As the poster of President Cleo and President Ford, I take exception to being included. I didn’t mention President Bush, directly or otherwise, in that post, and when I mentioned Al Gore, it was just like that, with no “President” tag at all. I see where you’re going, but don’t tar me with that brush. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/24 "2002-06-07T16:54:48Z")
Neither did I. I didn’t mention _President_ Bush at all, with or without the honorific. And, for the record, I didn’t consider Bush **or** Gore to be the lesser evil, which is why I did not vote for either of them for the presidency. I threw my vote away on a third, or really fourth, party. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/25 "2002-06-07T17:49:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The same Ashcroft who, when warned by outgoing F.B.I. chief Louis Freeh about the terrorist threat, brushed him off. This source claims that Bill Clinton’s FBI Director Louis Freeh knew about the terrorist threat, but took no action, escept to warn Ashcroft. Supposedly, Freeh continued to take no action during the first half of 2001, while he continued to head the FBI. First of all, I don’t believe that Freeh had key terrorism knowledge which he failed to act on. That’s a horribly serious accusation to make without evidence. Second, if the accusation were true, I don’t see why Ashcroft would deserve the blame. Freeh would deserve the blame. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/26 "2002-06-07T18:02:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Binarydrone \* > \ Oh my sacred cows are falling! The Wound! The Wound! > > Now pardon me, but I gotta go pack to move off to Texas, buy a gun, become a Fundie and give up my vegetarian commie pinko fag ways. > > I have truly seen the light! Dubya is NOT an international embarrassment. Nor is he an over promoted sack of crap! The scales have fallen from my eyes. > > Anyway, I am off to coat my car in flag decals and then wipe my ass with the Bill of Rights. Deal with criticism much? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2002, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/27 "2002-06-07T18:37:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jarbabyj \* > \*\* > > Deal with criticism much? :rolleyes: \*\* Why no, I have lead a life completely devoid of any kind of negative feedback. My entire existence has been one of constant adulation. :rolleyes: yourself. ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/28 "2002-06-08T05:11:33Z")
I didn’t vote for either Bush or Gore so what’s the fucking point? Enjoy the armchair politicians that sit back and say that this could have been better, that could have been different. But you will forever be pitting them against each other as long as one or the other is in office. All in all it’s a bunch of bunk. Remember, I didn’t vote for either of them. ---
**Author:** ![Ottto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e495f1/32.png) [@Ottto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ottto)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/29 "2002-06-08T17:33:28Z")
Holy shit. Only a democrat would post an ‘insightful’ article from a site called ‘Media Whores Online’. What, not even the frigging NY Times can give you better tripe? What Gore would or would not have done is meaningless. It is Gore’s daddy Klinton that fucked things up for us. While Gore may just be an automoton for the leftists, even I wouldn’t blame him, coming in after 8 years of clinton. Gee fucking whiz, why is the CIA and FBI chock full of nitwits? It couldn’t have anything to do with the politically correct gobblers that clinton put in there over the course of 8 years, huh? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/30 "2002-06-08T18:02:10Z")
> [@](#): > > It couldn’t have anything to do with the politically correct gobblers that clinton put in there over the course of 8 years, huh? You’re demonstrating your ignorance, here. (We’re supposed to be _fighting_ that at the Straight Dope©.) The career professionals in both outfits are recruited as civil servants. Only the top guy (top couple of guys?) in either outfit is a political appointee. If the FBI and CIA are screwed up, it is much more likely the result of years and years of inbred complacency and bureaucratic inter-departmental and inter-agency feuding than any sin of commission or omission by any appointee of a recent president. ---
**Author:** ![Ottto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e495f1/32.png) [@Ottto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ottto)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/31 "2002-06-08T18:32:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* You’re demonstrating your ignorance, here. (We’re supposed to be _fighting_ that at the Straight Dope©.) The career professionals in both outfits are recruited as civil servants. Only the top guy (top couple of guys?) in either outfit is a political appointee. If the FBI and CIA are screwed up, it is much more likely the result of years and years of inbred complacency and bureaucratic inter-departmental and inter-agency feuding than any sin of commission or omission by any appointee of a recent president. \*\* Oh, you know better then that. The problem is systematic, sure, but top-bottom, not bottom-top. I am hopped up on espresso right now, but I will try: 1)Clinton gets elected. 2)Clinton appoints the new heads of the FBI, CIA, etc. Clintons high-placed cohorts will also place people, but in lesser positions. So… a)His buddies populate/influence promotion in the lower ranks (still talking about upper-management, but stuff like 'assistant deputy this or that) 3)Since Clinton is a screaming fuck-tard, it only follows that the people he appoints will also be screaming fuck-tards. Furthermore, Clintons cohorts are screaming fuck-tards, who will appoint yet more screaming fuck-tards. 1. The FBI (for example) now has Clinton, then Reno, then Freeh in its very upper ranks. THREE LAYERS OF FUCK-TARDEDNESS ALREADY! 5)Fast forward 8 or so years. The idiocy at the top-level of the agencies has promulgated itself down to the mid-levels of the agencies, since management tends to promote like-minded individuals. Something like that. That is how Clinton clobbered our various agencies (which were pretty jacked up to begin with!) The military is not excluded. Remember, we actually had a general call a lawyer and ask whether or not M.Omar was a valid target. Fuck-tardedness abounds, even to this day. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/32 "2002-06-08T18:41:09Z")
Had he been elected by the Supreme Court, President Gore would have immediately gone on television and made a 2 hour long speech pointing out that the attack had violated ordinance 3.14159sub[/sub] of the EPA regulations for dumping waste without a permit. He would have explained page by page the full provisions of the Goode-Green-Cox bill and why that did NOT apply, although Dingell-Boxer did. Mostly, the address would focus on Lott-Crapo. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/33 "2002-06-08T19:15:49Z")
> [@](#): > > 5)Fast forward 8 or so years. The idiocy at the top-level of the agencies has promulgated itself down to the mid-levels of the agencies, since management tends to promote like-minded individuals. You continue to demonstrate your ignorance. As anyone who has watched any of the various Federal agencies can explain to you (if you stop screaming loudly long enough to listen), the civil servants within the organization are masters at ignoring things that they believe are “imposed” on them from cabinet-level positions. Occasionally, a cabinet officer can screw up a department (briefly) by refusing to authorize any large projects that they oppose. (Can you cite a single large project in the FBI or CIA that has been opposed at the cabinet level?) However, the rank and file in day-to-day activities are rarely affected by actual politics–certainly not in a mere eight years, given the length of service that the civil servants tend to have. (Note that with twelve years to work on them, the Reagan-Bush team was unable to create a crew to detect and destroy terrorists–or even to recognize that the U.S.S.R. was crumbling as quickly as it did, a specific goal claimed by Reagan-Bush. It would have been the Reagan-Bush inspired and directed team that performed so admirably in Waco in '93, even though Reno gets to take the blame for it.) Basically, you have simply shown (once again) that you are as hysterically partisan and as phobic of facts as the source cited in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2002, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/34 "2002-06-08T20:26:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Binarydrone \* > Dumbass How so? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/35 "2002-06-09T06:09:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ottto \*5)Fast forward 8 or so years. The idiocy at the top-level of the agencies has promulgated itself down to the mid-levels of the agencies, since management tends to promote like-minded individuals. \*\* I used to work with an ecomomist who called this the “galloping meatball” theory. I never found out if that was his personal joke, or whether it’s in some economics text. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/36 "2002-06-09T13:59:19Z")
With a beard, sans a beard, it doesn’t matter. Al Gore is boring, has always been boring, will always be boring. I think we should expand on the “President Miss Cleo” scenario… ---
**Author:** ![lenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3bc359/32.png) [@lenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lenin)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/37 "2002-06-09T16:44:49Z")
President Cleo might have seen the attacks, but would she have fought the terrorists hand to hand like President Harrison Ford? I think not. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/38 "2002-06-09T17:30:25Z")
> [@](#): > > had violated ordinance 3.14159sub[/sub] of the EPA regulations I thought it was ordinance 3.141592653 in the **F** ederal **A** gencies’ **C** ommon **E** nforcement booklet? ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/39 "2002-06-10T01:28:26Z")
> [@](#): > > We elected Maria Cantwell, one of the few darn honest politicians left. > > Actually I think she might be the last one. [http://www.opensecrets.org/2000elect/dist\_total/WAS1.htm](http://www.opensecrets.org/2000elect/dist_total/WAS1.htm) 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Narile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@Narile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Narile)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788/40 "2002-06-10T03:24:18Z")
tomndebb, sorry, but when you have political appointees of the nature that Clintons and Congress did in those organizations, it fostered a _very_ bad attitude in the FBI and CIA where agents were not following up on leads because they feared that any mistakes, no matter how minor would lead to the end of their careers. [Rowley: ‘Climate of fear’ impeded agents.](http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020607-6895196.htm) My father took early retirement because of similar problems in the Civil Service, and my mother is constantly struggling with them in doing her job. The current enviroment in the Civil Service is one of **Total Zero Tollerance** \*, where a single small mistake will ruin your career, and most of the people running the organizations are allways looking for a scapegoat who made said small error to place the blame for the failings above upon. Very few of the appointed level people are willing to standup for their lower downs because to do so is to ask for the end of their current political positions. Thus the lower downs are even worse about it. Do I place the blame for this problem on the Clintons shoulders? Not entirely, the problem started before the Clintons, but they majorly increased the problem with their appointments. \*\*\*\*\* As opposed to Zero Tollerance, which is the idea that one does ones best not to repeat mistakes, ie. One learns from ones mistakes. The current enviroment only lets you learn that a single mistake will be your last. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-gore-have-done-september-11-mini-rant-long/112788.md?page=3)