When Things Cant Get Any Worse

It’s hard to really imagine what would have happenned if Al Gore had been President during the 9/11 attacks. Assumming they happenned as they did under Bush, an event of that magnitude would have by its’nature necessitated some kind of response, and a quick and decisive one. Otherwise, that along with other factors would have insured that, given the degree of closeness in the 2000 election, George W. Bush would have made a comeback in 2004, would have been decisively elected, and then, of course, we would be faced with the prospect of a George W. Bush re-election campaign in 2008.

But what could Gore have done, really? I have no doubt he would have beaten the diplomacy door to death, and may have dropped a few bombs, notably on Kandahar, before reaching some kind of UN brokered agreement which would have necessitated Osama Bin Laden being “invited to peacefully leave” Afghanistan. This of course would have been unsatisfactory.

But there was obvioulsy no chance the Taliban was going to turn Bin Laden over, or betray him in any manner. Therefore, Gore would have had little choice but to invade, with probably similar results as today as regards the current Afghan situation.

On the other hand, Bin Laden, if there had been an invasion and war, may have been apprehended or killed. One thing for certain, the Iraqi adventure would never have transpired. This means, of course, Saddam would still be in power, would still be a thorn in our sides, but such is life.

We would still doubtless, at least up until 2004, been experiencing ever growing record budget surpluses, despte the tech stock bubble bust, which anybody with a shred of common sense knew was inevitable. But this would have been tweaked, and dealt with, maybe even to some degree by a series of tax cuts. But I have no doubt, however it turned out, we would not be experiencing the record deficits we are currently undergoing.

Illegal immigration would have been a continually on-going problem, there would be nothing in the way of any kind of medical health care reform, and the Repulican controlled Congress would have fought Gore tooth and nail resisting any kind of comprehensive energy and environmental reforms, and they would have done so successfully.

But the one thing that would have killed Gore in 2004, would have been Al Gore. You see, in the election of the year 2000, Al Gore was cheated out of his destiny-the destiny to become a one term president. In 2004, people would have been dreamily heralding Bush with the same kind of whimsical “if only we would have elected him in 2000” attitude that people to a large degree are currently considering Gore. And he would have won.

The result-we would eventually be going through pretty much the same thing we are going through now, only four years later, and I have no doubt for four years longer. The prospect of a two term Bush presidency extending until January of 2013, while a sobering thought, would have been an inevitability. Gores one claim to success may have been his handling of the Afghan conflcit.

Only there may never have been one, because-there may never have been a terrorist attack during a Gore presidency. Gore and his administration may well have acted on the intelligence that New York Times reporter Judith Miller is now insisting the Bush Administration had access to some weeks before the attack. Bus and his people seem to ave ignored any such warnings. Some would assert tey did so purposefully, with the intention of using the event to their own political advantage. It would be easy after all, this early in the first Bush term, to blame it on the lax, all too casual culture of the Clinton Administration. Which they certainly did do, actually.

Whether Bush and/or his top people did this purposefully, or whether they simply didn’t have enough information as to when and where the attacks would transpire to warrant taking any action that mght have resulted in a panick, to say nothing of accussations of political gamesmanship, we may never know. And of course it is also impossible to know whether Gores people would have prevented the attacks, or how they would have responded had they occurred.

If Gore had prevented the attacks, of course, he would have gotten little or no credit for ahving prevented such a large scae attack, as the psychological impact just would not have been a fraction as great. It would not show up as so much as a blip on the 2004 electoral radar screen.

Now, of course, Gore insists he has no intention of running for the presidency in 2008. If true, too bad. Because I have no doubt that, ifthe curent situation continues, with both parties, the way it currently is going, Gore is the one Democrat who could, conceivably not only win the Presidency, but bring with him sufficient coattails to control both houses of Congress, probably by a substantail margin.

Clinton, were she to win, could not accomplsh this, not at this stage. Neither could Biden, Feingold, O’Bama, Kerry, Edwards, Clark, Richardson, or any of the other current Democratic hopefuls. Gore could. He could also, given his degree of very real if unrecognized passion for the burning issues of the day, conceivably go down in history as one of the great ones.

You see, there is a reason Bill Clinton chose Al Gore to be his running mate that fateful day in 1992. Al Gore made Bill Clinton respectable. Al Gore made Bill Clinton electable. And the Republican party never forgave Al Gore for that, and have spent every waking moment since that day in an effort to belittle him, to ridicule him-dehumanize him, even.

Yes, Al Gore is the best potential possible Democratic candidate for president of the Untied States. The only thing he needs to have is the unmitigated desire to run, and the self-confidence to let his real, human side show in the course of a campaign, and the common sense to not only not listen to the wrong advisors, but to curtly show them the door.