# Would 9/11 have happened if Gore was elected? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 26, 2004, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552 "2004-03-26T12:04:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/21 "2004-03-26T16:42:54Z")
> [@elpadre](#): > > BullCaca. Bush was asleep at the switch. Probably dreaming about stolen elections. Your bitter partisan slip is showing. Jim Angle of Fox News has Richard Clarke on audiotape describing the efforts by the Bush administration to accelerate the efforts against AQ. I heard the soundbite myself last night. And please spare us the anticipated “Fox is not a credible source” diatribe. I don’t imagine masked thugs with “Right Wing Conspiracy” on the back of their jackets tortured Clarke into saying what he said into the microphone. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/22 "2004-03-26T16:50:09Z")
> [@Master Wang-Ka](#): > > … I really don’t think his presence affected the 9/11 attacks one way or the other. I think those lunatics would have done what they did unless they were physically prevented from doing so by armed police or security of some sort. I agree ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/23 "2004-03-26T16:55:44Z")
Oops hit submit too soon. I agree that chances are that the same thing would have happened with the same invasion of Afghanistan following, regardless of the president. I disagree that it had to happen that way, that once Al Qaeda set its plans in motion there was no possible other outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/24 "2004-03-26T17:06:41Z")
BUT, the Bush Administration has already said that it didn’t have its own plan on terrorism in place on 9/11. Apparently it was still too early in the term (although 1/6 of the term was already over). So it’s conceivable that a continuation of the Clinton plan could’ve helped. Another thing: Gore would not have taken a month-long vacation right after the inauguration. In fact, the Clinton administration warned the Bush administration about the danger that Al Qaida posed, so it’s obvious that Gore would, at the very least, have communicated this to the CIA and FBI. No one really knows what would have happened. I just think that the probability would have been lower under Gore. And please don’t get me wrong, 9/11 was certainly NOT Bush’s fault (unless that vacation hindered the implementation of a plan on terrorism). Whenever a brand new administration takes over, the transition process slows down progress in all areas. ---
**Author:** ![HumptysHamhole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f0a364/32.png) [@HumptysHamhole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumptysHamhole)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/25 "2004-03-26T17:09:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Assuaging the terrorists is not the issue at hand. The issue is whether an alternate administration could have/would have prevented the occurences of 9/11 from coming to pass. Please go back and read the OP. It clearly asks whether or not the attacks were motivated in part by “bad blood” between President Bush, Sr. and “Arab states.” My point is most relevant to that question. It both questions whether or not there was “bad blood” between the two parties (whoever “Arab states” may be) and whether or not that “bad blood” would have been made better if Gore were elected president. The OP clearly askes if the attacks were “revenge” against George Bush (assuming for the Gulf War). My post shows that Al Qaeda would have also hated Gore for the same reasons that they hated Bush. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/26 "2004-03-26T18:18:19Z")
I am still waiting to see the blood. “Bad blood”, that is. I’d like to see “a lot of bad blood”, as OP promised, but I’d settle for at least a little bit, even a smidgen. Because if a poster with such impeccable anti-Bush credentials as ‘cc’ will prove that there indeed was a “bad blood between George Sr. and some of the Arab states”, then Iraq can’t be excluded and therefore the popular slogan that “Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11” will be put to rest once and for all! Where is ‘cc’, anyway? Hard at work? Paying sweet homage to Bachus and Venus? Or apprehended by our own “correct thinking” swift response team and sent to re-education camp? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/27 "2004-03-26T19:44:05Z")
My two bits says that _al Qaeda_ would have tried to carry out the 9/11 plot anyway, but there would have been a greater _possibility_ of discovering and foiling the plot beforehand, under a hypothetical Gore Presidency. As others have noted, AQ didn’t care who was President, they just wanted to attack the US. But a Gore Presidency would not have been distracted with finding excuses to invade Iraq or giving handouts to Cheney’s energy industry croneys, and would have continued their efforts against AQ (such as the thwarted LAX airport bombing plan, and a possible retaliation for the _USS Cole_ incident). ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/28 "2004-03-26T20:11:47Z")
I say no; if Gore had been elected, the day after September 10 would have been September 12. (Too obscure? Kind of a re-working of the “Do they have the 4th of July in England” question…) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/29 "2004-03-26T21:23:05Z")
> [@MMI](#): > > So nothing can be done? The terrorists will get through? I don’t know what you mean. Yes, things can be done to prevent future terrorist acts, and the President is doing them. In theory, Gore and Clinton could have done things to prevent 9/11 during their administration. I heard that the Sudanese were willing to hand bin Laden over to Clinton, but Clinton got cold feet about the legality of the action. Gore could have said something about the threat of terrorism during the campaign. In theory, Bush could have done things to prevent 9/11 as well. Every left-winger in the US and abroad would have condemned everything he did as the start of a fascist military dictatorship, instantly, loudly, and continuously. All that is in theory. Nobody knew ahead of time that 9/11 was going to go down as it did. After the fact, we can find indications of what was up, because we now know what happened and can select retroactively based on our 20/20 hindsight. But it is like the WMD in Iraq. Everyone is judging the situation **now** based on information that was not available before the fact. Suppose Clinton had sent a memo to Bush on January 19, saying “Terrorism should be your top priority.” Suppose Bush had been able to refrain from saying, “Then why the hell didn’t **you** do anything about it?” Then Bush goes on national TV and says that these twenty Middle Eastern types should be arrested, because he thinks they are going to hijack a plane and crash it into the WTC. How much public support is **that** going to generate, do you think? I suspect about as much as the idea of invading Iraq to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons generates among the lefties of the SDMB. And probably not a lot more among the moderates, either. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/30 "2004-03-26T21:49:35Z")
> [@MMI](#): > > **Furt** Your first quote of me is not a quote of me at all. The cite tolls for **ccwaterback** , not for me. :o Oh … well, um … you were just standing there, and I hadn’t said “Cite?” in quite awhile, and I knew **ccwaterback** wouldn’t give one… ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/31 "2004-03-26T22:14:42Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > But a Gore Presidency would not have been distracted with finding excuses to invade Iraq or giving handouts to Cheney’s energy industry croneys, and would have continued their efforts against AQ (such as the thwarted LAX airport bombing plan, and a possible retaliation for the _USS Cole_ incident). Right. Because terror was such a high priority in Gore’s campaign that we can be sure it would have been the only thing Gore focussed on during his first few months in office – no time spent on dealing with the elections fiasco, no transition teams, no shuttling cabinet and other executive appointments through the approvals process, no fallout from Clinton’s 11th hour executive orders, no campaigning for other Dems in the run-off elections, no time spent shoring up education or the environment, no worry about the floundering economy. It would have been Gore and a couple of military guys sitting around a table, figuring out how to take out terrorists. . . . And, oh yeah, Gore would have found out about the 9/11 hijackers being in our country and planning to fly planes into landmarks because . . . uh, because of his superior investigative skills. He totally would have succeeded where our intelligence agencies failed. That’s because he wouldn’t have been sitting in the Oval Office, waiting for intelligence to come to him; he would have rolled up his sleeves and planted some wires himself, analyzed the satellite photos himself, beat confessions out of street informants himself. Just like Kojak. And also, Gore would have totally retaliated for the USS Cole attacks. He and Clinton had just been too busy focussing on _other_ terrorist threats that they hadn’t gotten around to retaliating in the **3 months** between the time the [the Cole was attacked](http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/USS%20Cole%20bombing) and the time that [Bush was sworn into office](http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html). Yeah, that’s the ticket. Come on. Neither Gore nor Clinton nor John McCain nor FDR could have done anything to change 9/11. None of them would have had either the time or motivation to completely overhaul the intelligence community in such a way that we’d have actually received information on the 9/11 hijackers’ plans. It’s possible that in some alternate reality, we got a lucky break and stopped them. In this reality, no such luck. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/32 "2004-03-26T23:52:01Z")
I think Great Satan will still be Great Satan even if you give him a different crown.\* (\*In the eyes of the nutcase extremists that pulled this off.) As for whether or not a Gore Presidency would’ve “discovered” this… Fiddlesticks. As has been mentioned many times since The Day Which Will Live In Even More Infamy, _nobody_ envisioned anything this extravagant. Even if word had been picked up - and I see no evidence that anything other than a huge Intel overhaul would have done that - they would’ve, at best, heard that “something” was going to happen, and assign an extra security guard or two to watch the Towers. Nah. Argue over other issues - taxes, social issues, grammatical flubs - but as far as this issue goes, it didn’t really matter who was President. Any quibbling is just yet another psycho-Partisan maneuver. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/33 "2004-03-27T00:19:28Z")
I guess I was originally thinking about the hostage situation when Carter was president, and how they didn’t release the hostages until Regan was sworn into office. My mind was trying to draw some parallel between that situation and the 9/11 situation with the Bush’s. OK, I guess the analogy doesn’t exist. As far as George Sr. and the Arab states “bad blood”. Under George Sr., we kicked Saddam’s butt out of Kuwait. Now I’m not exactly sure how all the other Arab states felt about us doing this, but I would be somewhat confident there were at least a couple of them that didn’t cheer us on to victory. And because of this continued meddling in the Arab world, I can be somewhat certain that George Sr.'s aggression towards Iraq was a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to the terrorists. Just speculation, but I don’t think I’m too far off in my assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/34 "2004-03-27T00:51:23Z")
> [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > Right. Because terror was such a high priority in Gore’s campaign that we can be sure it would have been the only thing Gore focussed on during his first few months in office – no time spent on dealing with the elections fiasco, no transition teams, no shuttling cabinet and other executive appointments through the approvals process, no fallout from Clinton’s 11th hour executive orders, no campaigning for other Dems in the run-off elections, no time spent shoring up education or the environment, no worry about the floundering economy. It would have been Gore and a couple of military guys sitting around a table, figuring out how to take out terrorists. **Bzzzzt!** Straw man argument, ten yard penalty. > [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > . . . And, oh yeah, Gore would have found out about the 9/11 hijackers being in our country and planning to fly planes into landmarks because . . . uh, because of his superior investigative skills. **Bzzzzt!** Straw man argument, ten yard penalty. That’s your second warning, buddy; one more and we’ll have to remove you from the game. > [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > And also, Gore would have totally retaliated for the USS Cole attacks. From the [London Guardian:](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0805-04.htm) > [@](#): > > \*\*Bush Held Up Plan to Hit Bin Laden \*\* > 8/5/2002 > > The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday. > > The plan, under which special forces troops would have been sent after Osama bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration but **a decision was left to the incoming Bush team.** > > However, a top-level discussion of the proposals took place only on September 4, a week before the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington. In the months in between, the plan was shuffled through the bureaucracy by **an administration distrustful of anything to do with Bill Clinton** and which appeared fixated on national missile defense and the war on drugs, rather than the struggle against terrorism. > > …The plan to take the counter-terrorist battle to al-Qaida was drafted **after the attack on the warship the USS Cole** in Yemen in October 2000. Mr Clinton’s terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, presented it to senior officials in December, but it was decided that the decision should be taken by the new administration. It does not take a rocket scientist to speculate that an incoming Gore Administration would _not_ have been “distrustful of anything to do with Bill Clinton,” and would have therefore taken action on this plan long before September 2001. > [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > It’s possible that in some alternate reality, we got a lucky break and stopped them. In this reality, no such luck. As I wrote before, a Gore Administration would have had a greater _ **possibility** _ of discovering and foiling the plot beforehand – but not any assurances of doing so. Still, even if we speculate that a Gore Administration might have only had a 50% chance of discovering and foiling the 9/11 attacks, we know that a Bush Administration had an even _ **smaller** _ chance of doing so – odds further reduced because of fixations with Iraq, energy industry handouts, missile defense systems, and a knee-jerk reaction against anything from the Clinton Administration. ---
**Author:** ![elpadre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/838e76/32.png) [@elpadre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elpadre)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/35 "2004-03-27T04:22:22Z")
“the efforts by the Bush administration to accelerate the efforts against AQ.” That’s 100% pure BullCaca. Bush is trying to take credit for the good stuff the Clintons did and blame them for his own failings. “partisan . . . Fox” Now there’s two words who belong together. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/36 "2004-03-27T05:29:08Z")
Of all the real things I can think of to bash Bush over, the 9/11 incident really isn’t one of them. If someone had called him up and said, “Hey! They’re gonna fly airplanes into the Twin Towers!” and he’d smiled and patronized 'em and hung up the phone, well, that’s another matter. But, to my knowledge, nobody did that. True, there have been experts saying “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” for years. They were right. Hell, I believed them. But who in potato’s name would have ever dreamed anyone would pull a stunt like THAT? It goes outside any sane standard of war anyone has ever used. This was not the act of warriors, or soldiers, or even freedom fighters; this was the act of monsters who simply wanted to hit and hit hard against a big bad enemy, no matter who they actually hit, no matter what the cost. …so until I see some evidence that Bush knew exactly what they were going to pull, and when, I can’t see bashing him over that. He’s done plenty of other stuff to bash him over, anyway. I can’t see bashing Bill Clinton for not blasting Osama into wet red confetti, either. Assassinating and/or kidnapping foreign leaders is baaaaad doodoo, unless you’re at war with 'em. True, we’ve done it before – in Panama – and you’ll notice we did that under a Bush, too. Can’t bash Bush Jr. for wanting to blast Osama into wet red confetti, even now. We are at war, you know, and he’s made it pretty clear he’s the enemy, as far as terrorism goes, even if you ignore any other evidence. I do object to the fact that Bush Jr. seems to have intended to go after Saddam from the minute he put his hand on the Bible, and that he used 9/11 as an excuse to do so… particularly considering he doesn’t seem to have thought much about interim strategy or exit strategy. When we pull out, that place is going to turn into a meat grinder, real quick, I think. More so than it already is, I mean. I do wonder why he seems to be so reticent to testify before the 9/11 committee, though. If Gore was in office, I’m sure he’d be screaming his head off about those lying, dodgy Democrats, avoiding their responsibility to testify before the People… ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/37 "2004-03-27T05:32:12Z")
…although upon rereading that last one, it occurs to me that you could argue very neatly that Osama is not a “foreign leader.” True… unless you count his leadership of a terrorist organization, which ain’t much protection, even under international law. Then again, the Taliban would have screamed bloody murder if we’d swooped in, kidnapped him, and then left. Then again, they don’t seem to much like what we did instead of that, either. But at least there were verifiable links between Osama/Afghanistan and the 9/11 terrorists… ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/38 "2004-03-27T05:47:16Z")
> [@Master Wang-Ka](#): > > I do object to the fact that Bush Jr. seems to have intended to go after Saddam from the minute he put his hand on the Bible, and that he used 9/11 as an excuse to do so… particularly considering he doesn’t seem to have thought much about interim strategy or exit strategy. When we pull out, that place is going to turn into a meat grinder, real quick, I think. More so than it already is, I mean. Man I have to agree with that for sure. Somehow I think Bush thought we could go into Iraq, kick ass, take names, then put up a McDonalds and a Disneyland and go home. I think it’s clear he didn’t realize how deep the shit was he was stepping into. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/39 "2004-03-27T06:03:02Z")
I think the deal with Clarke is that he’s honestly convinced that the Bush administration didn’t do much about terrorism, for the simple reason that he was cut out of the loop and resented it. Clinton ended a long-standing practice of the president getting a morning briefing from the Director of Central Intelligence. Clinton never met with him. Instead, he received briefings from Richard Clarke. No doubt that close association with the president made Clarke think that he was being heard and the administration was doing something - despite the fact that very little actually got done. Then Bush came into office, and reinstated the old policy of being briefed daily by the DCI. This made Clarke’s role redundant, and he went back to having to provide opinions to Bush’s intermediaries. I imagine this stuck in his craw, and made him feel like his concerns were being ignored. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552/40 "2004-03-27T08:40:48Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > I think the deal with Clarke is that he’s honestly convinced that the Bush administration didn’t do much about terrorism, for the simple reason that he was cut out of the loop and resented it. :rolleyes: Assmuing for a moment that this statement is actually true, and not just more Bush Administration revisionist history, doesn’t that show that Bush, Cheney, Rice, _et al_ **TOTALLY** fucked up their anti-terrorism effort? To wit: “Okay, guys, it’s time to get serious about terrorism! Let’s put together a world-class caliber team to kick _al Qaeda_ ass! Who should be in it?” “How about Dick Clarke? He’s been an antiterrorism expert for 20 years, and served under the last three administrations. He’s got qualifications up the wazoo, and sure as hell ain’t a dove afraid of military action when needed.” “NAH! He worked under Clinton, so fuck that! Let’s leave him out of the loop and ignore all his experience and insights and knowledge!” Is this what you’re _truly_ avocating, **Sam?** Think carefully… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-9-11-have-happened-if-gore-was-elected/236552.md?page=3)