President Gore speech at NYU - atta boy!!!

[Hux]

AL GORE DELIVERS REMARKS AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ON PRESIDENT BUSH'S IRAQ POLICY

Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003

Thank you. It's great to be here and I appreciate your presence. Thank you so much for being here and for what you do on a regular basis.

OK.

I want to especially thank MoveOn.org for sponsoring this event and NYU for letting us use this beautiful facility and the NYU College Democrats for co-hosting it, cosponsoring it. I appreciate it very much.

Thank you, Michael Phillips (ph) and Eli Pariser (ph). A special thanks to my former colleague John Brademas (ph). I appreciate your kind words and Tipper and I are delighted to be with you today.

Some of you may remember that the last time I talked formally on the topics that we're here to talk about today was a little less than a year ago in San Francisco, when I argued that the president's case for urgent and unilateral preemptive war in Iraq was less than convincing and needed to be challenged more effectively by the Congress.

In light of developments since then, you might assume that my purpose today is to revisit the manner in which we were led into war, and to some extent that will be the case, but only as part of a larger theme that I feel very strongly needs to be explored on an urgent basis.

The direction in which our nation is being led now is deeply troubling to me, not only in Iraq, but also here at home, on economic policy, social policy and environmental policy.

Millions of Americans now share a feeling that something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country and that some important American values are being placed at risk. And they want to set it right.

The way we went to war in Iraq illustrates this larger problem. Normally, we Americans lay the facts on the table and talk through the choices before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with this war, not the way it should have.

And as a result, too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons we did not have a better public debate before the Iraq war started is because so many of the impressions that the majority of the country had back then turned out to have been completely wrong.

Now, leaving aside for the moment the question of how these false impressions got into the public's mind, I think it might be healthy to take a hard look at the ones that we now know were wrong and clear the air so we can better see exactly where we are now and what changes might need to be made.

In any case, what we now know to have been false impressions before the war, include the following.

Number one, Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.

Number two, Saddam was working closely with Osama bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaida terrorist group by giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaida from attacking us again.

Number three, Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill lots of Americans. Therefore, common sense alone seemed to dictate that we should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat.

Number four, Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists, and since the only thing then preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, it seemed like we had very little time left.

Therefore, it seemed imperative during last fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy, and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving the war in Iraq.

Number five, our GIs would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and representative democracy, so there wouldn't be that much of a risk that U.S. soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.

Number six, even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won, and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that U.S. taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill.

Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong.

For example, according to the just-released congressional investigation, Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of September 11th. Therefore, whatever other goals it served--and it did serve some other goals--the decision to invade Iraq made no sense as a way of exacting revenge for 9/11.

To the contrary, the U.S. pulled significant intelligence resources out of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to get ready for the rushed invasion of Iraq, and that disrupted the search for Osama at a critical time. And the indifference that we showed to the rest of the world's opinion in the process undermined the global cooperation we need to win the war against terrorism.

In the same way, the evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction, so our invasion of Iraq had no effect on Al Qaida other than to boost their recruiting efforts.

And on the nuclear issue, of course, it turned out that those documents were actually forged by somebody, though we don't know who.

And as for the cheering Iraqi crowds that we anticipated, unfortunately--very unfortunately--that did not pan out either, so now our troops are in an ugly and dangerous situation.

Moreover, the rest of the world certainly is not jumping in to help out very much, the way we expected, so U.S. taxpayers are now having to spend $1 billion every week.

In other words, when you put it all together it was just one mistaken impression after another, lots of them.

And it's not just in foreign policy, because the same thing has been happening in economic policy, where we've also now got another huge and threatening mess on our hands.

I'm convinced one reason we've had so many nasty surprises in our economy is that the country somehow got lots of false impressions about what we could expect from the big tax cuts that were enacted, including: one, the tax cuts would unleash a lot of new investment that would create lots of new jobs; two, we wouldn't have to worry about a return to big budget deficits, because all the new growth in the economy caused by the tax cuts would lead to a lot of new revenue; three, most of the benefits would go to average middle-income families not to the wealthy, as some partisans claimed.

Unfortunately, here, too, every single one of these impressions turned out to be wrong. Instead of creating jobs, for example, we are losing millions of jobs: three years in a row of net losses. That hasn't happened since the Great Depression.

As I've noted before, I was the first one laid off.

And you never forget something like that.

And it turns out that most of the benefits of the tax cuts actually are going to the highest-income Americans, who, unfortunately, are the least likely group to spend money in ways that create jobs during times when the economy is weak and unemployment is rising.

And, of course, the budget deficits are already the biggest ever, with the worst still due to hit us. As a percentage of our economy, we have had bigger deficits, but these are by far the most dangerous we've ever had for two reasons. First, they're not temporary; they're structural and long-term. Second, they're going to get even bigger just at the time when the big baby boomer retirement surge starts. Moreover, the global capital markets have begun to recognize the unprecedented size of this emerging fiscal catastrophe.

In truth, the current executive branch of the U.S. government is radically different from any since the McKinley administration 100 years ago.

The 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, George Akerlof, went even further last week in Germany when he told Der Spiegel, and I quote, ``This is the worst government the U.S. has ever had in its more than 200 years of history.''

I didn't say that. That's the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

He said, ``This is not normal policy.'' In describing the impact of the Bush policies on America's future, Akerlof added, quote, ``What we have here is a form of looting,'' end quote. Now again, that's the Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Ominously, the capital markets have just pushed U.S. long-term mortgage rates higher soon after the Federal Reserve Board once again reduced discount rates. Monetary policy loses some of its potency when fiscal policy just comes unglued, and after three years of rate cuts in a row, Alan Greenspan and his colleagues simply don't have much room left for further reductions.

This situation is particularly dangerous for our economy right now for several reasons. First, because home buying, fueled by low rates, along with car buying, also fueled by low rates, have been just about the only reliable engines that have been pulling the economy forward.

Secondly, so many Americans now have variable rate mortgages, so the increases hit people quickly and hard.

And third, it comes at a time when average personal debt is at an all-time record high. A lot of Americans are living on the economic edge.

It seems obvious to me that big and important issues, like the Bush economic policy and the first preemptive war in U.S. history, should have been debate more thoroughly in the Congress and covered more extensively in the news media and better presented to the American people before our nation made such fateful choices. But that didn't happen. And now in both cases, reality is turning out to be very different from the impressions that were given when the votes and the die were cast.

Since this curious mismatch between myth and reality has suddenly become commonplace and is causing such extreme difficulty for the nation's ability to make good sensible choices about our future, maybe it's time to focus on how in the world we could have gotten so many false impressions in such a short period of time.

At first, I thought maybe the president's advisers were a big part of the problem.

Last fall, in a speech on economic policy at the Brookings Institution, I called on the president to just get rid of his whole economic team and pick a new group. And a few weeks later, damned if he didn't do just that.

And at least one of the new advisers had written eloquently about the very problems in the Bush economic policy that I was calling upon the president to fix.

But now, a year later, we still have the same bad economic policies and the problems have, if anything, gotten worse. So obviously I was wrong: Changing all of the president's advisers didn't work as a way of changing the policy.

I remembered all that last month when everybody was looking for who ought to be held responsible for the false statements in the president's State of the Union Address. And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the president himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one.

But whether you agree with that conclusion or not--and I see some of you here, do--whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump, you have got a stake in making sure that representative democracy works the way it is supposed to.

I wanted to speak to this Internet-based organization of people who become active in representative democracy because I think this methodology represents one way of trying to fix things.

[Schwa.]

quote:

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The 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, George Akerlof, went even further last week in Germany when he told Der Spiegel, and I quote, ``This is the worst government the U.S. has ever had in its more than 200 years of history.''

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quote:

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I remembered all that last month when everybody was looking for who ought to be held responsible for the false statements in the president's State of the Union Address. And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the president himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one

---

Amen. How do you think the world would be different right now if it weren't for the illustrious Dimpled Chad?

[bouche]

I was going to post that for you earlier. Gore's gonna go for it...he has to.

He's TROUBLED by the direction at which their nation is being led. In fact, he says:

"The direction in which our nation is being led now is deeply troubling to me"

This a VERY bold statement. It's the kind of statement that could only come from someone bold enough to run for president.

"And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the president himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one."

[Stapes]

Finally a little sanity.

Hope it makes a difference.

[Stapes]

Isn't it funny that Arnold is getting more press that this story.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Vote Mugwump !

[TonyRage]

It's really quite unreal to think about how the world would be if Bush hadn't rigged the election (fact- not my opinion).

(the following is definately my opinion)

September 11th probably wouldn't have happened

The wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq and coming up in North Korea and possibly Syria would not have happened.

Canada would have completely decriminalized pot.

They would have let my brother's friend, who had a misdemeanor hacking charge against him, into Maine for It and he wouldn't have left in tears from the border.

But on the plus side, his policies have united many groups who had far-reaching goals towards one common goal of removing Bush. The hypocrisy of the capitalist-oligarchical state has come to light in a brilliant and impossible to miss fashion. Even die-hard republicans have begun to question their's and their nation's place in the world.

------------------------------------

On an aside...

quote:

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He said, ``This is not normal policy.'' In describing the impact of the Bush policies on America's future, Akerlof added, quote, ``What we have here is a form of looting,'' end quote. Now again, that's the Nobel Prize winner in economics.

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IMO, due to the fact that 95% of astological research the past 6 years has been the wuest to find new planets, and the retardedly short-sited "looting" of the Bush administration, I can only come up with one conclusion. The 'old-boys club' is preparing to vacate the premises. One last hurrah and smash-and-grab job and whoooooshhh, they are all off to explore strange new worlds (which they probably have already charted) in their super-new warp powered space thingy. Maybe I'm just a nut, but...

[hamilton]

quote:

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Originally posted by bouche:

I was going to post that for you earlier. Gore's gonna go for it...he has to.

...

This a VERY bold statement. It's the kind of statement that could only come from someone bold enough to run for president.

---

Let's hope so.

The Democrats do not currently have any candidiate who can give Shrub serious competition for the presidency, which is worrisome. Not that the current candidates are bad or anything, just that none of them have what it takes, at this time, to compete with Bush - especially in light of the fact that there are millions of Americans who actually support everything that Junior has done.

American needs Gore, or someone of his calibre and status.

Actually, the whole world needs him - an American election is a world election really, except that the rest of us can't vote (of course, millions of Americans can't vote either, but that's another story).

[hamilton]

quote:

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Originally posted by tonyrage:

IMO, due to the fact that 95% of astological research the past 6 years has been the wuest to find new planets...

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I think you mean, "astronomical research". Unless you mean that the Bush administration has been checking its horoscope more frequently.

Come to think of it, that could be why they've made so many silly decisions...

"Cancer: This is a good day to invade an impoverished country and alienate most of your traditional allies. Shock and awe your way to domination. People in Iraq will respect you."

[The Constable]

Thanks for the email tip English. You were right to assume that I'd probably have some dissenting opinion to pass along regarding this post ...

The former VP offers up considerable criticism of Bush administration policies, both foreign and domestic, yet that's really all he offers up. This type of mudslinging isn't that surprising given the current climate of bipartisan political relations in the US as they approach the 2004 election period but it does raise an interesting question ... "Mr. Gore, what would you have done differently?"

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Originally posted by tonyrage:

It's really quite unreal to think about how the world would be if Bush hadn't rigged the election (fact- not my opinion).

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Careful now tonyrage, that's a serious allegation. Bush won that election fair and square. They could only recount those Florida ballets so many times before they eventually had to declare a winner. If you've got issues with the Electoral College system (as many people do) you'll need to go back to the founding fathers and try to figure out their logic.

For the record, I too recognize that Al Gore would have been the best choice for President back in 2000. Aside from those pesky Democratic party ties he was easily the most qualified and best suited to take over the reins from Slick Willy but he committed the cardinal sin of American politics - he looks bad on TV. Who knows how much different (or the same) things might have been if those few thousand recounted votes revealed a different result???

[larry jr.]

I don't know about Gore. He's criticizing Bush's "Iraq policy" but I bet had he been in the Senate, he would have voted to give Bush war-making powers, just like Kerry, Gephardt, and the rest. Gore has always been pretty hawkish, and has said on the record that he supported the Panama invasion, Grenada, Iraq war I, Kosovo, the Sudan bombing...where was he on the drug war in Colombia, Iraqi sanctions, etc?

I doubt Gore would have initiated this Iraq war had he been president, but it's easy for him to shoot his mouth off when he doesn't hold office.

Don't get me wrong, I'd take Gore over Bush any day of the week and twice on the Shabbas, but I bet Kerry and Gephardt (and other Dems who voted for this war) were gritting their teeth somewhere.

[MarcO]

I don't think that had Gore won the election 9/11 *wouldn't* have happened, but I do believe he wouldn't have squandered the support and sympathy of the world community by acting arrogantly and irresponsibly.

Bush has racked up a shocking list of victims in his approach to the War On Terror: the UN, the Supreme Court, the people of Afghanastan and Iraq. And yet, the perpetrators of the terrorist acts are still alive, unfound, surely reforming and rebuilding their organizations.

It's been George's great blessing that another terrorist attack hasn't happened on US soil since he's decimated Afghanastan and Iraq. It may get Joe Yankee wondering whether Shrub has a clue how to deal with this or not..... bad news for George. And, unfortunately, it *will* eventually happen - the US administrations recklessness will make sure of that.

I still can't believe he's President. It's like a bad dream.

[phishin4groove]

if i had bush in front of me right now, I would beat him with a rubber hose!

[Mr. Musicface]

quote:

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Originally posted by The Constable:

quote:

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Originally posted by tonyrage:

It's really quite unreal to think about how the world would be if Bush hadn't rigged the election (fact- not my opinion).

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Careful now tonyrage, that's a serious allegation. Bush won that election fair and square. They could only recount those Florida ballets so many times before they eventually had to declare a winner. If you've got issues with the Electoral College system (as many people do) you'll need to go back to the founding fathers and try to figure out their logic.

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Actually, just to stick up for tonyrage a bit here, the alleged problem wasn't so much with the Electoral College but with the way the Florida state officials handled certain aspects of the initial voter registration, and with the intervention of the Supreme Court in the Florida recounts, with all those Regan/Bush Sr. appointed justices making the final call, NOT the Electoral College.

I'm not going to go off into great detail but Michael Moore's account of the whole thing in Stupid White Men is quite an intriguing read. Moore's obviously got his own agendas, and I'm no expert in US election law, but it sure sounds like there was some shady business going on down there, and more than just the whole 'hanging chad' thing.

Peace,

- Mr. M.

[larry jr.]

The true story about what happened in Florida still hasn't been examined in any depth by most of the U.S. mainstream media. It's a scary story.

Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida

http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=1

Palast wrote a best-selling book, called "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." It looks at the election in more depth.

[secondtube]

"Bush won that election fair and square."

did i just read that?

how do people think like this?

do you live in a hole?

[AdamH]

Hard to weigh in on the Florida vote, as none of us can be sure it was just poor voter management to blame. I can't swing as far tonyrage to say it was rigged, nor as far as the constable to say it was fair and square. I guess I'll "swing both ways" and simply say it was wrong.

I agree with Gore's stance but agree with many who point out how easy it is to criticize. One of Gore's weaknesses in 2000 was his lack of charisma, and the feeling that, when pressed, he would be unable to take decisive action when called upon to do so. And keep in mind this was before September 11th, so now the voting audience REALLY needs that kind of a leader. To Bush's credit, he may be an idiot but he presents himself as a man of action. Gore's ideology is wonderful but when the axe falls can he respond quickly and thoughtfully, demonstrating patience and confidence at the same time? I'm not sure.

Perhaps one of Naders strongest points, which we're all picking up on as a weakness from the last election, was that he supports the concept of proportional representation. How novel...a system of government that extrapolates political views from the base of voters in a fair and equal representation in government! No more minority governments a la Nova Scotia (36% Majority PC govt and the liberals and NDP sharing 31% each...whacky tobaccy)

Since we are all politically minded, we should read more about proportional representation. And, we all like pizza so I sort of figured...

I Like Pizza

[bald guy in a blanket]

The Greg Palast link and book is amazing. Micheal Moore (whom I love) can be hard to swallow sometimes, this guy, Palast hits it on the head.

I don't think it was rigged per say. Pro Bushers just did what they could. In Florida, however they stepped over the line and stripped thousands, yes, thousands of their right to vote. They (Jeb and Ms. Harris) should be in jail, but they won't be.

Why?

The point that Palast brings up is that we have too much reliance on the mainstream media. If it's not reported, then it didn't happen. There is a belief that the press and media will always hold the government accountable.

But consider this...

The exposure of Watergate by Woodward and Berstein and The Washington Post was so rare that they made a movie about it (and a very good one at that). Beyond that the media has never brought any leader down.

Now, the question is:

Is Nixon the only leader that deserved to go down?

Well, here's some stuff that I do know about.

-In 1960 at least hundreds of dead people voted for Jack Kennedy in Chicago. It made the difference and he carried the state and the election. The mayor at the time was a mobbed-up radical Democrat (if you can imagine that) named Richard Daly.

-In the 1980's Regan's government sold weapons to a government, Iran, (a declared enemy of the U.S. at the time) that was quite publically connected to Terrorists that held Americans hostage for more than half a year. They than proceeded to have those terrorists trained by the CIA to be "better" terrorists. What happened a General named Oliver North was scapecoated into taking the blame and getting big jail time, but don't worry, he was pardoned by George Sr. and now Ollie hosts a syndicated radio show. (Clinton pardoned a tax evader and he's the asshole)

These are just a couple things that people don't even bother denying anymore.

I'm not a conspiracy guy but I do believe in the unfailling human tendancy to do whatever the hell they can get away with.

George Bush didn't "steal" the election himself, but he didn't "win" anything.

P.S.-The votes never were re-counted, not even once. The one time they started to count in Florida Bush's dad's supreme court friends stepped in to stop it. At the time of the stoppage, Gore was gaining on Bush, rapidly.

By the way every, supreme court decision in this matter was decided by one vote, along the exact party devisions that corespond to the party of the President that appointed them.

Was there a conspiracy? No.

Was it corruption? Maybe.

Was it "fair and square". Not even close.

[The Constable]

quote:

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Originally posted by secondtube:

"Bush won that election fair and square."

did i just read that?

how do people think like this?

do you live in a hole?

---

If you've got a different take on what happened I'd be more than happy to hear your misinformed version of the 2000 election story.

This should be really good -- a vast right wing conspiracy that manipulated the final vote results and awarded the presidency to someone who didn't rightfully earn it or better yet the whole world knew about the rigged election yet decided to do nothing about it. Sure, Gore sat idly by relaxing, playing golf and football with his family while his certain opportunity to ask for a nation wide recount passed and he loses his chance to asend to the highest office in the US.

Ya, that's exactly how it happened. Shake your head and give me a break!!!

Many people make valid points regarding questionable Supreme Court decisions in this case and the fact that state voting regulations revealed numerous inherent problems and that they were in need of a major overhaul. However, as most are aware the 2000 election was unique in American history in that no one ever that anticipated a vote so close or that it would so greatly test the utility of the Electoral College system. The make up of the US political system, as time can attest, is one of the strongest ever put together. The checks and balances that are in place, the way in which Justices are appointed is a time tested and true practice that should not be questioned when the results of certain decisions and outcomes are disputed, especially by the snivelling liberal left wing who seem to dispise all that is Republican within the US. Situations like this should only serve to strengthen the make up of government by pointing out the need for reform in specific areas.

To say that Bush didn't rightfully win that election is FALSE. Granted, he may not have the strongest mandate in history but he's the one calling the shots.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

quote:

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Originally posted by The Constable:

quote:

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Originally posted by secondtube:

"Bush won that election fair and square."

did i just read that?

how do people think like this?

do you live in a hole?

---

If you've got a different take on what happened I'd be more than happy to hear your misinformed version of the 2000 election story.

This should be really good -- a vast right wing conspiracy that manipulated the final vote results and awarded the presidency to someone who didn't rightfully earn it or better yet the whole world knew about the rigged election yet decided to do nothing about it. Sure, Gore sat idly by relaxing, playing golf and football with his family while his certain opportunity to ask for a nation wide recount passed and he loses his chance to asend to the highest office in the US.

Ya, that's exactly how it happened. Shake your head and give me a break!!!

---

The fact is that poorer neighbourhoods were targeted, flyers were handed out to the effect that you won't be able to vote if you have any outstanding parking tickets, a criminal record, etc; etc; This is merely one small case in point.

[Stapes]

quote:

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If you've got a different take on what happened I'd be more than happy to hear your misinformed version of the 2000 election story.

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You must have missed it.

quote:

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Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida

http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=1

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[The Constable]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stapes:

quote:

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If you've got a different take on what happened I'd be more than happy to hear your misinformed version of the 2000 election story.

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You must have missed it.

quote:

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Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida

http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=1

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I think the point of the question that I posed in my original post on the topic, "Mr. Gore, what would you have done differently?", has been lost

in the rhetoric that we all keep throwing out there. Any issue can be spun to look favourable to your cause regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum. The source of my ongoing annoyance stems from the constant complaining and belly-aching that the popular media and many obviously left leaning individuals on this board seem to keep going on about. The great thing about an open and free democratic society is that we all have the right to gripe and bitch about the things that we deem wrong with our government, social structure, or whatever else you choose to pick apart. The major problem I see is that no one offers up any truly viable alternatives or useful solutions to the issues they continue to talk about. It's one thing to voice your opinion on what's wrong with the world and quite another to put forth constructive ideas on how to fix those problems. So I ask each of you again, what would you have done differently in order to combat the issues that have faced the Bush Administration over the last 3 years???

[bald guy in a blanket]

Now you've gone and done it.

What would Gore have done differently?

Not that much.

Although 9/11 is a bit of an x-factor. While Democrats as a whole are generally as soulless as any Republican and their bullshit is funded by the same people (part of the reason that I think your endorsement of the American political system ,a two-party system that only represents the wealthy, is a little whacked), I think Mr. Gore would have reacted quite differently to 9/11. He certainly wouldn't have called for a "crusade", he probably wouldn't even have called it an "act of war". Sure he would have attacked the Taliban but probably not Iraq. I also don't think he would have squandered the the mass good will from the world by not waiting for a true multi-national invasion force in Afghanistan (did I spell that right? no resource near me). We know why Bush didn't do that. because even after 9/11 he didn't give a shit about foriegn affairs. He refused to even look at American culpability in the creation of the almost global hatred toward America. It wasn't until he wanted to invade Iraq illeagaly that he started to really look beyond his border and that was mostly to bribe nations into putting them on a list saying they agreed with that "pre-emptive" war.

You see I think Gore has a sense of history and I think he would (or at likely would) have used the collective good will of the world to start an unprecedented push for an alternative fuel source. And I'm not an idealist. I don't think he would have done it because he's a great guy. He would have done it because his education, liberal leanings and ego would have recognized a chance to change the world for the better and be lauuded as a hero in schoolbooks.

So do I think the world might be different if Gore was at the helm? At least a little if not a lot.

What would I have done differently?

1) Well, the first thing would be that the only Republican in the cabinet would be Colin Powell. The rest of those fuckers (w/ the possible exception of Condeleeza Rice) should just go back to using corporations to rob middle-class people, Heck, they're good at it. But seriously robbery should be a job for the private sector.

2)The next thing I would have done differently is force mileage standards back to at least the Reagan era (when cars were actually getting 5-10 miles more a gallon!!!). I probably also would have spent a bit of cash to increase consumer confidence in low-mileage hybrid cars (more demand leads to better research and even better low mileage cars).

3) I would have abandonded the notion entirely (as every financially sound country in Europe and the Scandinavian region did years ago) that an upper class tax cut and rebate stimulates the economy. It doesn't, it actually stimulates recession. (although I do like that our dollar is getting better--it makes it easier for me check out shows--How was Darien?)

4) I also wouldn't have signed that STOOPID "Economic Stimulus" package right after 9/11 that essentially gave back billions, yes billions in already paid tax dollars to corporations that were posting profits. All it stimulated was the long term savings accounts of wealthy stockholders.

5) See above about using 9/11 positively. In addition to the reduction of oil use I would have not used Isreal as an example of how to fight modern terrorism. Every time I turn on the news some idiot is killing some innocent or plowing over someones house or blowing something up all in retaliation for the last thing while famlies in that region duck and cover and wait for the next thing. Whatever Isreal is doing, it isn't working. The country that would have been my role model would have been Great Britan. Modern Terrorism in Ireland has all but stopped becasue, I think, the government dealt with it as criminal/police problem. They stopped giving creedence to the arguements of the murdering scum by treating them as, well, murderers---NOT soldiers. Terrorism isn't an act of war, it's a crime.

6) That's another thing I would have done differently...I never would have declared "war" on anyone. "War", which is so good for the polls, is bad for exctracting information. The reason that we know so little about Bin Laden's plans and whereabouts is because we'e not ALLOWED to persuasively ask his associates down in Cuba that were captured. Why not? The Geneva convention forbids it during war. And this is not something that you can risk breaking...especially if your naming a shiny new "axis of evil" to go beat up on.

I could go, on for a while actually. But I think you should reconsider the idea, Constable, that all liberals are whiny people with no ideas of their own (just because some idiotic right-wing pundit says it true, don't make it so). That's the democratic party you're thinking of and Christ, their not even liberal anymore.

Ciao.