I agree that if Gore had won, he’d have rallied the country behind him, just as Bush has. However, I would guess that Gore’s policy would have been somewhat different.
Since the tragedy, the NY Times has been running editorials favoring a less warlike approach, e.g. the use of international cooperation and economic sanctions. The Wall Street Journal editors have been recommending go-it-alone attacks on all terrorists. It’s reasonable to suppose that Gore’s policy might have been more in tune with the Times’ suggestions.
That’s not to say which policy is better. Only time will tell.
If Gore were in office, the only specific difference in current strategies I can imagine is that the Russians might be more proactively willing to aid our international counter-terrorism efforts (not necessary our fight in Afghanistan, mind you). After all, during the campaign, Bush lambasted Gore for his overly personalized relationship with the Russian leadership; such a personal rapport would probably be of great use at this moment in time.
Lavish praise is poured over the head of a deeply mediocre man who managed to memorize a speech. Pretty good speech, competently delivered to a utterly sympathetic audience. The speech seems as though it were cobbled together by a team of marginally gifted writers in a competition, a contest to determine who could force the audience to a standing ovation the most number of times.
Did you notice the Supreme Court? The way they looked around at each other to gauge whether or not the delivered punch line was worthy of standing, or just applauding?
I turned the sound off, and just watched. I didn’t see a man delivering a dreadful message of blood and pain. Which was the message, “make no mistake about it”. I saw a man deeply enthralled with himself as a leader of men, seeing himself magnified in the lens of attention.
Gore might well have delivered the same message, but with a heavier heart, I think.
i thought of this soon after the attack. What if Clinton had been in office when this happened (ugh). Nader??
I wished that Gore could have been the leader because I see him as more of an actual leader among his advisors (unsubstantiated intuition). I feel he would have had a better understanding of the all the dynamics involved. Gore would have a better historical perspective. Would never have used the term “Crusade”. Would have felt the context of history and possibly issued a call on par with “Day of Infamy”, or Churchill’s “I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil and tears”.
then again, it’s easy to idealize the path we didn’t take.
I think W is rising to the occasion, as he must. I don’t think Gore would have had as far to rise.
then, I’m glad Bush is there because we got Colin Powell on top of the situation. Damn, that guy exudes so much command it’s scary
regardless of who’s in the oval office now, the right thing to do is to support him in a time like this.
Eh, I don’t know. Gore has always been more hawkish than most Democrats. He supported aid to the Contras and Desert Storm, and IIRC pushed the Clinton administration toward engagement in the Balkans. I don’t think he takes directions from the New York Times.
I think Gore would have done fine; probably better in the photo-op and TV speech stuff. But I am glad to have Bush’s cabinet rather than the dems’.
I will say this. On the day of the 11th, when it seemed that Bush might have been a target, my thought was “Jesus, you guys better hope you don’t succeed. You do not want a pissed-off Dick Cheney as our CinC when we come for you.”
Conversely, the thought of Joe Lieberman mumbling his way through as our leader frightens me.
I just wanted to address this quickly - isn’t it clear now that the Supreme Court probably did the right thing? After all, it has been months since the election, and millions of dollars have been spent by news organizations to try and and come up with the ‘real’ count, and the numbers STILL are in dispute. Just what would have happened if the Supreme Court hadn’t stopped the proceedings? What possible resolution could have come out in a few more days or weeks that would have been any more satisfying?
It’s frustrating that no one is still willing to admit that the election was a TIE. The vote differences between the two candidates were so small that they were inside the error bars of the election. Anyone who has studied statistics knows that when that happens, if you keep re-measuring you keep getting different answers, no matter how long you keep it up. And that’s what you’re seeing now.
And, in addition to the point made by Sam Stone, we can now better appreciate the value of the Supremes ending the recounts and lawsuits once and for all. Imagine how much worse this attack would have been if it had taken place when we didn’t even know who was President.
Oh please. Even if the Court had let the recount go on, all the votes still had to be in Congress like two days later. If there were still problems with the electors, the election went to Congress itself. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES would we have still been wondering who was going to be president.
Somebody please open a window! It stinks in here like a Pit! Liberal Democrats like yours truly will support any reasonable direction that any President takes in time of war crisis because we are patriots and in war, for better or worse, we follow one commander in chief and give out no shit whatsoever. It is military discipline that is also required of civilians.
The Republican posters above have suggested that this means that liberal democrats are now behind all of the President’s policies and are almost implying that they would not follow the a President from the other party if the shoe were on the other foot. I’ve got news for you guys. If Gore, (who actually served in a combat theater of war as a military journalist) had been President, his policy reactions would be much the same as the current administration, and every American who puts patriotism in time of war ahead of party partisan politics would give similar support. Would there be people who conintued to carry on about Gore’s “character”. Yes, but it would be ununifying.
My county Democratic Central Committee had its regular meeting on the eveing of Sept. 11, and we unanimously passed a resolution (which I had the honor of introducing) supporting President Bush in bringing the perps to justice. We still disagree with his tax policies, spending priorities and other things not related to the war effort. We will offer a candidate in 2004 who will continue to prosecute this war and have better domestic policies. We will expect to win. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the American people will not evaluate both candidates fairly. This is a war unlike any other war in the past, and there will be less incentive to avoid switching leaders in mid stream. We are embarking on a war that will easily last 5 to 10 to 15 years.
We must remain together on this and support the military plans of our commander in chief, GW Bush. And because this is a quasi military operation, we won’t know what the full plan is. Trust our leaders and professional officer corps to do what they are trained to do and protect not only our lives, but our civil rights too.
As far as the Supreme Court’s propriety in Bush v. Gore, it does not appear to me that the events of Sept 11, 2001 constitute any support at all for the legal reasoning used, which has been analyzed ad infinitum by scholars criticizing and occasionally supporting.
And IMHO calling the decision “legal reasoning” is awfully generous, and I’ve spent 20 years studying constitutional law. I thought the opinion to be the most cynical and worst reasoned opinion I have ever read. (And yes, I think it is substantially worse that Plessy or Dred Scot.)
Sorry, I guess I didn’t communicate myself well. I did not mean to suggest that the Supreme Court’s actions were in ANY WAY linked to September 11. It’s a certainty that if they hadn’t acted, there would still be a president today (and it would probably still be Bush), and he .
My point was simply that the result was unknowable. Period. It wasn’t a matter of needing a few more days to get a ‘better’ result. There was no better result to be had. We’ll never know who was the ‘winner’, and there was no way to know even if another month had been spent counting votes. So at some point, someone had to make an arbitrary decision that enough was enough, and pick a winner. If the Supreme Court hadn’t done it, it would have gone around again for a couple of weeks and then probably just wound up back in their lap again anyway.
In my hypothetical horror situation, several more Florida recounts would have been conducted, each would have been ordered or upheld by the Florida SC and then reviewed and overruled by the USSC. Eventually the Florida legislature would have overruled the Florida Supreme Court and selected their own slate of electors. Then the various slates of electors would have been disputed, the vote would have gone to Congress. Then the decision of Congress would have been appealed to the Supreme Court. I can’t even contemplate what would happen if the SC accepted the case in this hypothetical situation.
This process could have chewed up a lot of time. Meanwhile the attack could have taken place in January rather than September…
Oh, thanks for clearing that up. Somehow, I’d missed the existence of a time machine in your earlier post. :wally
But upon further reflection maybe you really did mean to question how horrible it would have been if this attack had taken place while the Electoral College was still being sorted out. In which case, the answer to the question
would have been Bill Clinton. :wally
There are certainly merits to quickly resolving who the next president is going to be. Democrats were no more happy about the clusterf*** of last fall than Republicans were. None of those merits have even the remotest relationship to how this nation should respond to the attack of September 11. Asserting otherwise is partisan nonsense at its most nonsensical.
MG, I’m surprised at the need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Yes, consider what would have happened if the attack had taken place shortly before iaugeration day with the new President still uncertain. Clinton wouldn’t have been able to make a commitment beyond his term of office. Neither Clinton, Gore nor Bush would be in a position to credibly call for a long-term war on terrorism. Bush and Gore could have announced a common strategy, but that wouldn’t have been believed. The country wouldn’t know who to rally behind.
These things would have mattered internationally as well as at home. E.g., it would have been more difficult to obtain cooperation from Pakistan.
But again, that seems to assume that there would be a significant difference between how Bush and Gore would have handed this attack. As long as they agreed on the approach America would pursue after innauguration day, why would Pakistan refuse to cooperate with either candidate or the still-in-office president? Somehow I doubt General Mushareef’s (sp?) cooperation is in any way dependent upon who our president is.
If we’re heaping hypotheticals on top of hypotheticals, what if the terrorists had attacked on Novembeer 15, 2000 instead? Then could I blame the Republicans for obfusicating the results with out-of-state rioters and Katherine Harris instead?
What’s done is done, but I take the view that if Rehnquist, Scalia et al had actually followed their oaths of office and ruled impartially based on the laws (and not their own partisan and personal motivations), a manual recount would have been completed by no later than mid-December, and all the legal haranguling would have been done by mid-January, just in time for the swearing-in ceremony on January 20th.
A bit of a hijack but somewhat relevant to the topic. I understand that the NORC analysis of the election is completed and results were to have been released last week. In light of the WTO they have now been buried indefinately.
