What would Al Gore have done?
 

This is the big what if question. What if Al Gore had become Presidnet instead of GW? What would he have done in the face of 911? You boyz are smart and I would like to hear some well thought out answers on this one. So just pretend you work for the Rand Corp. for a moment and present your scenario.

Al Gore is President.

The economy is roughly the same as it was for GW...boardering on recession.

911 takes place...remember the planning for 911 started in 1996, so it was going to take place no matter who was Prez.

What would have been the likely response and or ramifications to any actions taken by Prez Gore in the following three areas. These areas must be addressed in your scenario. In other words how would it have played out.

1. World reaction to Prez. Gore's action.

2. USA public and political reaction to Prez. Gores action.

3. USA and World financial & economic reaction to Prez. Gores action.

Any answers to those questions are extremely speculative; no one other than Bin Laden can say whether the attack would have taken place at precisely that time if Gore were President. It probably would have, IMO, but "IF" is a big word. And no American is more hated by Islamic extremists than George Bush Sr.

When history is altered by a bullet, (JFK would have been president from 1960-1968, and even after his assasination RFK would have ruled from '68-'76 if he was not assasinated), or by the Supreme Court, (stopping the ballot count in 2000), you can never truly know how it "might have been".

I for one, and many others in hindsight think that Gore would have handled the complex foreign policy challenges of the last two years better than Bush has, and the entire world would still be behind us as it was after 9/11/01.

But nobody can say for sure, except the right-wing geniuses of talk radio. :rolleyes:

Al Gore invented a lot of stuff, so we can be sure he would have invented a solution to today's problems.

let's just say that any positive reaction on his part would merely have been a figment of his imagination

Gore would have pee'd himself then hurled a couple missles, watch interest rates climb to double digitsand the economy crater and blame it all on the Repubs in Congress. Whiney, crybaby wuus.

Whether 911 happened on the 12th of September 2001 is not material. The fact remains that NO MATTER who the Prez was or is Al Oaeda would have attacked the WTC and Washington, they had been planning it for quiet some time before. Also Speeder knowing the character of Gore and the likely administration what would his course most likely have been. The choichs are relaitivily few. Also to say GW is paticularily hated....Bin Laden has said "Kill Americans" not Kill Repblicans.....baby your an American and if he can line up his sights on you he gona kill you. The Fundlementalist Muslims don't differenciate between Americans...we are all seen as being immoral, corrupt and weak. The very Liberal ideas you hold is the eptiome of what they HATE. Which is so totally ironic that Liberals are the ones who would feel their pain, as they blow up the plane you and your family are on. Oh i would say if the Fundlementalists would call off the war if we gave them Liberals for dinner then I say give em the Liberals, they would be doing the rest of us a favor.....

Anyone notice the difference in tabs' writing from the first post at 12:42AM and the one above at 3:09PM? Something is wrong.

LOL! I wasn't going to say anything, but.... :rolleyes:

Oh my Gawd theres something wrong! Hmmm....maybe Ian Morton wrote one of the posts? What da ya think?

WWJB? (Who would Jesus bomb)

EVERYBODY. The human race is doomed; time to start over from scratch.

NOT AGAIN!

Explain that please...

My fingers could fall off from typing my differences with the current administration of "sissy hawks", ie. former draft dodgers who are now all too willing to wage wars and spill blood, (but not their children's, of course), to further their 'neoconservative' agenda. Lying to congress and the public about "evidence" that they have that Iraq is an imminent threat to the U.S. or tied to 9/11 somehow is not off-limits, the ends justify the means, right? And the ends have little or nothing to do with your best interests, Mr. Bush supporter, sorry to break that to you.

When I think of our soldiers or Iraqi children laying in the streets dead or dismembered, screaming in pain and screaming for their mothers, (that's the way it really goes down, John Wayne), juxtoposed w/ Bush posing on the flight deck in May, smiling with his underwear rolled in a ball and stuffed in his crotch, telling us "Mission Accomplished", I want to see him cry like the b!tch that he is. Al Gore at least has seen combat and been in a war zone in his life, plus he is one hell of a lot smarter. (Faint praise). :rolleyes:

When neoconservative sissy hawks on talk radio talk about Democrats not "having the spine to use force", that should be translated as "not believing in expending our most valuable resource, the lives of our young people, unless all other options have been exhausted or for self defense". And no, I do not believe in the argument that we invaded Iraq as a "self defense", nor does anyone much else at this point.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were the best thing that ever happened for the neocons, a dream come true, now we can have an open-ended "war on terrorism", (never mind that terrorism cannot be fought w/ tanks or bombs, and they know this), and rule by fear, like I said, it's a fascist's dream come true. But it won't work on me. :cool:

.. .Colin Powell being the biggest draft dodger of them all, of course!
Ah, if only we could have Bill Clinton back. He knew how to dodge the draft like a *real man*. . .and when it came to binladen or Hussien, Billey knew how to lob a cruise-missle or two. Such mannly decisive action, through and through:rolleyes:

I don't include Powell in the "sissy hawk" club, but he has sold his soul to join them, IMO. Being a military man, loyalty to the team is everything to him, but he has seen war and has a different take on it, I believe. He would have made a good president. :cool:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by speeder . Al Gore at least has seen combat and been in a war zone in his life, plus he is one hell of a lot smarter. (Faint praise). :rolleyes:

Well, he may have been in a "combat zone". "Seen combat"? As a Senator's son? Denis, gimme a break! Remember, I turn 60 in November. I was around back then. ALGORE was a "PR PUKE" when he was in 'Nam. Clear enough?

Draft dodging in the Air National Guard? Maybe, but it’s a hell of a lot more honorable place to dodge than Canada. As for Gore, he served, but he must have forgotten about it except for when it was on a cue card.

I don’t mind criticism of the current administration, things can always be handled better, the gift of hindsight. I really have a hard time understanding how anyone could believe that the former administration could have handled it better.

If Gore were still pres. we would still be spending >$2 million per DAY enforcing the “no fly zones” over Iraq. (EDIT: This does not include flying hours and everything that goes w/ it. This is what it cost if we don't fly. )

Do the math for the last 12 years, and then people complain about the cost of the war and rebuilding Iraq. How long would we have stayed in the status quo? It would have happened, w/ Bush sooner than later and 911 picked up the pace even more. W/ the former administration, it would have been status quo until they were gone.

It’s easy to look good when you do nothing, much harder to please everyone when you actually accomplish something.

I don't think any Republican, radical or not, was happy about 9/11. I think some of the new laws are over-reactions, but politics has always been a swinging pendulum.

I don't agree with everything Bush has done, but I do credit him for staying the course. Of course, now he doesn't have much leeway. The Democrats will choose nitpicks to 'take a stand,' hoping that Bush falters, and the Democrats will pick up the scraps and more power. If the Democrats and Gore were so golden, they would stand up and challenge Bush and Co. Instead, they just sit back, occasionally stabbing with a plastic fork, and resort to licking wounds when their plastic spork plan backfires.

I wonder how North Korea is reacting to the war in Iraq.

Jürgen

BUt speeder, he (Powell) dodged the draft the same way GW did (he joined the military).

That BS aside; of all the names you could call GW, "sissy" just doesn't stick. Prior to 9/11 I may have given you the benifit of the doubt on that (I expected sissydom from the guy). Yet he has surprised us all by being very much his own man. . . a man that takes chances. (hardly "sissy" matterial)

But of course, we all understand the ways of the left; if you can't beat them, beat-up on them.

I keep waiting for some decent arguments from the left (to help keep this admin in check). Yet all I seem to read and hear is name-calling and tin-foil hat conspiracies. It's like there is a huge lag, from the left, in understanding it is a new day . . .no more politics as usual. The supposedly aulteristic "we do it for the children" slogan is a bit worn and out of place, when people are thinking in terms of "we do it for our survival."

Yeah, I know. . this has all been covered here before. It's just that it sure would be good if the Left started providing a smart balance to over zealous programs . . . but alas, the Left invented them.:(

Yeah, Gore would be Ok, until his internal operating system and hard drive crashed. Seriously, Gore scares me.

Getting back to Tabs' question, which in itself is pejorative and not very well-founded because it invites conjecture in the past tense (read: waste of time), Gore's actions nonetheless, would be nothing near that of Bush's. His (Gore's) resulting answer to 9/11 would be weak at best. There would be a lot of talk, a lot of second-guessing, poor judgment and an overall scenario much worse than Bosnia or Somalia, because in the case of Bin Laden, the enemy would be laughing in our battered, blown off and humiliated faces. Clinton's foreign policy was horrible and out-of-date. Thinking he would have a legacy to uphold (though he didn't, which was his downfall as he never invited Clinton to campaign for him - a foolish mistake), Gore would maintain like-minded policy as Clinton. Let's see, while Clinton was getting head from White House aides, millions of Bosnians were comparing their Croatian torturers to Hitler, and Somalian warlords were running drugs, raping women and generally thumbing their noses at the US as it told them to (in Clinton talk) "Ya'll stop that." And even as these issues resolved (or perpetuated) themselves before 9/11, the history of inaction on the Democrats part exists - I would expect no better from Gore or Clinton. That administration was very weak on the World Stage, thinking that as long as Britain remained our lap dog, everything was fine with the rest of the world.

Bush did the absolute correct thing with Afghanistan. Iraq will need more time to see his correctitude. Thus far, I'm not convinced. Nevertheless, Afghanistan needed decisive action right away because as Tabs more or less pointed out, 9/11 did for a very finite amount of time, deeply hurt the United States. Put Gore in that scenario and we'd still be having continual terror alerts and US nationals abroad crouching in fear. Democrats make lousy foreign policy. Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton. The world is not lovesick and nice. It does, on many occasions, need to be dealt a heavy hand, but in a directed and poignant manner.

So in short answer to the three questions: 1) The world reax would be the U.S. is soft - we'd be further sufferers of terrorist action; 2) Public hatred of a hog-tied president, impotent in action and decision making; 3) We'd plummet into a depression unlike any seen, dragging Europe and Asia along with us.

Remember: Nixon stopped Vietnam after LBJ dug us deeper and deeper into it; Reagan brought our credibility back to the Middle East after Carter lost it; Bush Sr. kicked Sadamn's ass out of Kuwait, and Jr. effectively disabled Al Queda, even if Bin Laden has not yet been caught. In short, jobs got done, which in a volatile world needs to be seen.

No kidding! Did anyone see his SNL episode? That guy is a better actor than Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, or any of the other "actors" they've had host in recent years.

Except The Rock. That man can act. :rolleyes:

Ahhh DD hate to clue U, but these boards are ALL A WASTE OF TIME! Whats new? But what do you have thats better to do?

I suspect the State Department, DOD, Treasury Dept. CIA etall.. (Americas Bureaucracy) and Congress would have told Gore in no uncertain terms that he had to take decisive action or there would be no economy or country left. Therfore Gore would have
invaded Afganistan...for better or worse. Beyond that I think DD is correct.

The point of this exercise is for people who have criticized GW and the course of action he has taken. This is supposed to make those people think what the alternative was and the likely outcome of the decisions the other canidate would have made.

DD74, I completely agree with your post. Well said.

Interesting thought. The only problem is Gore happens to be a phenomenally bad conveyor of information. He doesn't even possess the ability at double-talk Clinton has, or forethought to consider obscuring truths with half-truths and half-truths with well-orated lies. And to maintain his constituency, if not the truth and his resolve within the American people, Gore would need to "communicate" that attacking Afghanistan is needed. But could he? Clearly? No.

1) Gore is a lousy speaker - that's a given. He huffs and puffs during debates, rolls his eyes, and looks fantastically juvenile.

2) Of Gore's inability to communicate, being a lousy speaker would render Gore's reasoning behind an attack on Afghanistan ill-explained, unclear, and not thought out, unlike Bush who poignantly said, (sic) "It is them. They did it. Here is where they are. This is why we attack."

3) Gore would have the Democrats and Republicans in a confused state of mind because of his poor communication - again unclear - and the war on terror would suffer the second-guessing I mention in my first post, rendering that war not nearly as potent as it currently is under Bush. Even if information on who instigated 9/11 were, depending upon how you look at it, as sketchy or clear cut, Gore would muddy it unlike Bush who thankfully "acted" Presidential, "acted" as angry as the rest of us, and "acted" like he wanted to vindicate the U.S.

4) Okay, the powers that be, DOD and likewise, would tell Gore what to say, but none of the decision-making would be of his own volition. By all rights, any attempt at vindication under Gore would probably lead us into a worse mess than under Bush. With Gore, the various departments used to vindicate the U.S. would become free-for-alls, and act on their own, which is what happened with Clinton's administration because Clinton had no control over the CIA, FBI, DOD, etc. Yes, he had "yes men," in those agencies, but no clear control. Only when 9/11 happened and Bush put his foot down, did any sort of coalescing begin.

Of course in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one could argue that Bush was nowhere to be found and Guliani was, at the time, our only leader. In fact, as in-line with Bush as the media wanted to portray itself throughout the Afghan campaign, it (the media) was immediately critical of Bush only hours after 9/11, saying he was the missing president and Guliani was our true leader. All of this is a red herring; countermeasures to protect the president in case of an attack are always taken. In fact, it was quite exciting how they shuttled Jr. around from airbase to airbase, then stuck him down a big elevator shaft somewhere in the Midwest to protect his safety.

I hope you're happy now tabs. Gore read this thread. He's pissed.

Gore News Network

:D

problem with that is: will anyone listen???

Said it Better than me
 

Then what your essentially saying is that if Gore had been President the country would have fallen. I would have thought the government would have gone around Gore, either leaving him high and dry in the WH, impeached, or worse. But the aspect of having no central control among the various agencies, and their free wheeling it would lead to chaos in our government.

The effects of which are:

1. Collapse of Global Security and then the Global econmy. If the USA is attacked and doesn't take decisive action to remedy the situation then the USA has no credibility....and since the USA is the only Superpower, a power vacume occurs, and it's open season not just on the USA but on everybody, cause we ain't there to stop it.

2.Politically in the USA...lynch mobs would form to lynch Gore and any supporters he might still have...The possiblity exists that the military might seize control to restore order...thus ending the Repblic.

3. The US economy and Global economies would fail....this would lead to the civil unrest as described above. It would be like dominos...the dollar would fall in value, Treasury Bonds would become worthless as foreigners pulled their money, interest rates would go through the moon, the Stock Market and Banks would collapse....and a world wide economic Dark Ages would descend on the world.

Remember each of the three areas I described above would not be acting independently of each other but would be interwined in one he!! of a domino effect. Also one other point Andrew Cuomo and Charles Daly would have been worthless...in other words the Gore administration wouldn't have a clue...it might as well be Peter Jennings...

My orginal posts on this Board indicated that the above would be likely to happen if the USA were to continue to be subject to successfull Terrorist attacks on the scale of 911. No matter who the President is. This is why I believe the war on Terrorism is do or die for this nation.

PS...One point of clarification...I don't see Bush as an actor...I believe he is genuine...an actor would never have used the word "crusade" in any articulation of policy toward the Islamic world. An actor would have had the fore thought to avoid such a gaff. Also just take a look at how his jaw clenchs and his beady eyes come together...focus when he hears something that makes him angry.

Tabs, You're imagination is a wonderful thing. Don't ever change! :)

And Bush's use of the word "crusade" in reference to the Islamic world was not a sign of genuine sincerity, (as in 'not an actor'), but rather a sign of dangerous, abject stupidity and complete ignorance of even "square one" knowledge of that (huge) part of the world and its history. I would rather have Gore, or almost anyone else, at the wheel right now.

Saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, "United We Stand" in front of the U.S. flag. If it was in front of the globe, or at least NATO, for chrisakes, it would have made a rat's ass worth of sense. Idiots. :cool:

Huh? That makes no sense whatsoever. A country united behind its troops and leaders against "the enemy" is not an idiotic concept.

Though depending on your point of view, we may or may not be united, I don't see how you can label someone an idiot for making the statement.

"Huh!?" was exactly what I was thinking too.

In trying to decipher what speeder is saying. . .I believe he is saying it is short-sighted to say "United we stand" in the context of just the USA . . .it should be in context of the world standing united against terrorism. (?)

So would someone kindly make speeder a bumpersticker that has the words "United we stand" coming out of the mouth of Captin Planet ?

Oh, and that American Flag thing . . . we don't need that around either. . .it just so smacks of some sort of special interest, that the WORLD just doesn't need. . .. just who do we think we are!? :rolleyes:

Colin and Dr. I. : I believe I understand what Denis is saying, and he has a good point (if I am correct); because the fear abroad is Iraq may be just the iceberg's tip in a global business strategy which heavily weighs in the U.S.'s favor.

This morning Radio Pacifica, whose veracity in general I take with a grain of salt, had a guest speaker who suggested a group of Saudis that wanted to infuse Iraq with cellular phone service was disabled by the U.S. military and not allowed entry into Iraq. Why? Because the contract for cellular phone deployment in Iraq has already been awarded -- to MCI. Yes, THAT MCI.

It's becoming clear that U.S. efforts in Iraq aren't entirely gratis, but are also hinged on big business making some $$$ from the rebuilding process. And that Democracy anywhere in the Mid-East = big contracts and services.

We'll see if it comes down to an invasion of Iran or Syria. If so, they'll infrastructure will be wiped out, as is the case with Iraq, and new life-oriented services will have to be installed. If this is the case again, I'll be first in line to buy stock in MCI, GM and Ralston-Purina.

Captain Planet....BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! :D

You slay me! :)

OK, OK. You're right. No wait, you're not.

Idiots would be people who think that the NASCAR crowd, (or whoever the 20% of registered voters who "elected" Bush is), united against the rest of the world, including our recent former close allies, = security for us. :rolleyes:

Those would be idiots. The beautiful U.S. flag, while we're at it, somewhere along the way got co-opted by the right wing as a symbol, (and they are not even close to being a majority of U.S. citizens)!, by the type of people who freely use soldiers lives as political props. As in, "not supporting the current administration and their wrong-headed foreign policy=not supporting troops", anyone who claims this at this juncture is an idiot. Add our draft-avoidiing, aircraft carrier posing, sissy-hawk, "bring 'em on" to Iraq attackers president to the list of idiots.

He'll be looking for a new business to run into the ground around this time next year, and our grandchildren will be paying for his stupidity. :mad:

After re-reading my last posts, I realize that I should not have had that 2nd double-shot @ Starbuck's one hour ago. I'm unusually pissed today. :mad:

I DO NOT think that everyone expressing their patriotism on their cars is an idiot, and furthermore, free expression is what makes this country great.

As Arnold would say, "sorry if I offended anyone". The difference being that I really mean it. :cool:

See, now I always thought that the Idiots would be people who think that the President (of the US) was somehow KING; and, as such, soley responsible for Everything. . .well, everything "bad" anyway. ;)

I listened to Terry McAuliffe (?) this morning on NPR basically blaming all of the world's ills on GWB...pretty sad. The economy, of course, is Bush's fault...even though the nosedive started before the '00 election.

That's because everyone knew Clinton wouldn't be in office anymore, and consumer confidence plummeted :)