Right on, Charles. A little common sense and it is not too hard to see who has screwed up our Country.
They need to leave the government -- all of them.

""Bush is not at fault for everything that has happened.
The biggest mistake that happened is the people that he has been getting information from.
There is not one of them that can be trusted.
They are not good for this country. No name calling , this is the bottom line.Bush is driven by greed and Gore wants the Best for the World and he is doing something about it.""

Well, Andres,

I have to say "thank you" for your slanted, Fox-lite article. It gave the rational community a chance to tell the screaming righties, (who are whimpy, hypocritical followers of a corrupt, arrogant President) the truth about the results of their blind devotion.

Its unjustifiable, and we (reality-based Americans) are sick of it. We are not going to take it anymore. The Hate-machine, the fear-machine, the false Patriotism machine, the call pollution "Clear Skies" machine, the attack-Americans-for-RNC-profit machine -- all the "brilliant" Rove tricks.

In words you will get: they suck. This Adminstrations sucks. Your devotion to this adminstration when it is tearing down America because you agree to hate this or that American, sucks.

So time out for you kids. Its over when Obama gets in, and you "Rovies" wont have a chance to play for the next twenty years. That's what happens when you get innoculated to disease, and Rove/Noe-con/Cheney is definately diseased reality.

We now know you/Rove/etc. dont care about all of America -- just your petty hatreds. And that just sucks.

4dsds6le2r0 1txdt7axfw9c3 [URL=http://www.840756.com/427121.html] kf6ve8apoovlgsl [/URL] 0t0hxeo0qpkzze83s

The point is Al Gore is the only man since the US began that did win, but due to the Surpreme Court
stopping the Florida count he lost.
He is the only man who won the popular vote and due to the above lost. Wonder who caused that? Guess.
Look it up on the web.

The knowledge some of the posters is amazing. Knowledge of thoughts, intentions, feelings and privey to "secrets" the Democrats in Washington can't evan verfie. Does the fact that Algore's family fortune includes major holdings in some of the largest petro/energy corperations have any meaning? His ability to maintain his "Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous depends in part on those stocks maintaining value, and his image depends on people beliving he's honest in his intentions @ global warming. But when he has a solution that will put millions of $ in his pocket(carbon credits) I get suspicous. Speaking of carbon credits- Anyone with a privete jet can pay me not to purchase one and they will recive my "Carbon Credits" 10% of purchase price on the jet sound resonable?

Gore and Bush have frames of reference that are so different that it is easy to say that the mistakes that Bush has made would never have happened.
Bush is not at fault for everything that has happened.
The biggest mistake that happened is the people that he has been getting information from.
There is not one of them that can be trusted.
They are not good for this country. No name calling , this is the bottom line.Bush is driven by greed and Gore wants the Best for the World and he is doing something about it.

Right now I am upset about how much power the voters have after they have made this mistake twice and can do it again.

McCain will surround himself with the same GREED.

I will say the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was absolutely Bush's desire probably before the 2001 attack. He and the Administration may have planned to overthrow Saddamn in a more subtle matter before 9/11. Since the assination of JFK, the US has a policy of not assasinating leaders no matter what. (Many think that that act of Kennedy's Administration in Cuba against Castro led to his murder? Who knows.) 9/11/2001 gave Bush and pals his opportunity to finish what his father's administration felt was too risky and too unpredictable after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, a quick decisive victory that drove Saddamn out of Kuwait after his invasion into Kuwait. Defanged, he was certainly harmless.It happens frequently
His own army generals may have killed him for starting the war. I doubt the other Arabs were happy with Saddamn invading Kuwait over its lowering of oil prices. Its about oil. Starting this war was idiocy. anybody with a brain knows not to fix something that isn't broken, especially there. Its been a war zone for 6000 years. Let sleeping dogs lie. Use the rhetoric if need be, playing your hand is not a good idea if the bluff works.

Really Putin must be laughing. Invading Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Union, (actually I think its back after 18 years in exile). Now Russia has oil, and we are begging the Saudis to lower prices. They won't, do they think the US will prevent their overthrow by bin Laden types now? Probably not. Osama is a Saudi. The Soviets did the exact same thing in 1980 in Afghanistan. They lost. Some people never learn. They think war time presidents are heroes. Usually not. Especially if you lose when you started it.

I suspect any president would have to take action of some sort after the 9/11 attacks. That was in Afghanistan. The US went in shortly after 9/11/2001. The invasion of Iraq was in 2003. The latter was Bush's idea. I think one of the biggest reasons he invaded Iraq instead of Afghanistan is the the disasterous Soviet escapade in the 1980's in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a very difficult place to fight. The advantage of air power is not so important. Somehow its been overated since World War II ended with the guerrilla tactics employed since WWII. The terrain in Afghanistan is extremely mountainous. Tanks, artillery and even air power can't do so much, as we had seen in Vietnam, relatively flat. It is not highly affective because you are only trying to kill soldiers, there are no fixed targets like factories, vehicles, ships etc. Like Vietnam, the enemy is hiding anywhere he can. Knowing the terrain inside and out since they lived there is a huge advantage and highly degrades the advantage of air power, like the brutal fighting in Southern Asia and Burma in World War II as well as in Vietnam. I believe Bush and his military leaders, knew better than to sit and wring their hands like Carter did over 53 hostages in Tehran in 1979. Thats when the Soviets plowed into Afghanistan. The Soviets were gone, but the radical Islamic world wasn't. Breshnev smelled weakness in 1980 and had always worried about the Soviet southern Muslim republics so he went in to subdue the bin Laden and the Mujhadeen. Bush had to do something and fairly quickly to avoid showing vacillating weakness like Carter in 1979. Somehow, the American people, because they have wealth and massive sophisticated military equipment, think they can win any war easilly. Unfortunately, like in WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan, when it comes down to it., its the brave souls, the foot soldier that in the end does the vast amount of fighting and dying especially in mountainous dense forrests of Afghanistan.
You will recall the Soviet Army fought an 8 year war against a young bin Laden and the Mujahadeen in the 1980's and drug their beaten, whipped demoralized butts out of the place seven years later. It demoralized the Soviet Union and I believe strongly led to the downfall of the regime in Moscow, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain in 1989. Somehow in times past, that event would have been talked about for years, but it seemed it got a few months of press here. It is one of the largr events in the latter half of the 20th century. A rebel group trashes the massive Red Army.

The US commanders after 9/11 knew it would be no different for the US in Afghanistan than for the Red Army in the 1980's. Close combat against guerillas like in the Souteastern Asian terrain and the Japanese forces against Britain in Burma in WWII. Bloody, murderous hell. They thought Iraq would be easier. The war was, but the occupation like always rarely ends in success.

"sometimes stuff cannot be prevented, especially an implausible scheme to turn airplanes into missiles"

A scheme that had not only already been anticipated in security planning for a G8 summit in Europe but prominently featured in prime time TV (in the form of the pilot episode for the Lone Gunmen, which was based on a plot to crash a jet into the World Trade Center).

By the by, why would AQ need to attack again? They wanted us bogged down in Afghanistan and we are; they wanted $144/bl oil and they got it; they wanted to overthrow the only secular government in the Middle East and we did it for them. Short of converting us all to Islam, their major action items appear to be all checked off.

The question is not whether Al Qaeda would have tried the attack on 9/11. That attack had to be in planning and prepartaion long before the inauguration.
The questionis whether they would have been caught.
Certainly, the Bush White House was blithely uninterested in the terror threat before 9/11. But the White House is not where such threats should be caught.

Here's an article about what the media recounts showed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount

VRC7411:

How many times do I (and others) have to repeat this? The subsequent media recounts did not show a Bush victory!!

They only showed Bush prevailing under the limited recounts in progress when the Supreme Court stopped the counting. Gore's big mistake was to never ask for a full statewide recount of all ballots unread by the machines-undervotes and overvotes.

The media recounts showed that had all these ballots been examined, Gore would probably have won. This is true whether the "hanging" or "dimpled" chads are counted or not.

A recount of every ballot would be the only legitimate recount that could be done. You can't just count some of the ballots and have a trustworthy result.

The preceding post by VRC4711 is exactly correct about BOTH the article's absurd Gore biases, and every citizen's obligation to observe the USA "social contract" after any election has been decided (and appropriately so by the Supreme Court in this very unusual case). Gore supporters did NOT observe their obligations to this social contract and have undermined that new President ever since, meanwhile spreading dissension for an unavoidable war with consequences for our troops in the field, and with that war's roots already embedded within previous administrations (including Clinton's, about which his Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, reported to the 9/11 Commission in 2004 the al Qaeda connection of a Sudanese pharmaceutical company--bombed by Clinton in 1998--being also connected to Saddam Hussein's chemical warfare people). This WaPo article mistakenly says that "in the lead-up to the war... leader's like Germany's Gerhard Schroeder would have been less tempted to score political points at home by standing up to the deeply unpopular George Bush." How "deeply unpopular" was Bush in the run-up to Iraq War?? Seems I recall almost all of Congress voting for the war option (including Hillary Clinton). It is also far more accurate to say that the truly devastating Euro war opposition came from Jacques Chirac of France and his Foreign Minister, both of whom did everything possible to thwart Bush's plans for Iraq & Saddam Hussein. This included their threatening Turkey over Euro union membership in order to thwart the opening of that second USA front via Turkey, which 2nd front might have stunted the subsequent Iraqi insurgency,...and at least have put far MORE troops onto the ground in Iraq initially. The reasons for Chirac's intransigent obstructionism had little to do with Euros hating a "deeply unpopular" Bush at that relatively early date, but rather as we now know of it, EVERYTHING to do with that UN "Oil For Food Program" of mass corruption on a truly historic scale, ....as well as long-standing curiously corrupt ties to Saddam Hussein by these particular French leaders alone back then (not to mention some Euro attachments to Saddam's oil).

The preceding post by VRC4711 is exactly correct about BOTH the article's absurd Gore biases, and every citizen's obligation to observe the USA "social contract" after any election has been decided (and appropriately so by the Supreme Court in this very unusual case). Gore supporters did NOT observe their obligations to this social contract and have undermined that new President ever since, meanwhile spreading dissension for an unavoidable war with consequences for our troops in the field, and with that war's roots already embedded within previous administrations (including Clinton's, about which his Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, reported to the 9/11 Commission in 2004 the al Qaeda connection of a Sudanese pharmaceutical company--bombed by Clinton in 1998--being also connected to Saddam Hussein's chemical warfare people). This WaPo article mistakenly says that "in the lead-up to the war... leader's like Germany's Gerhard Schroeder would have been less tempted to score political points at home by standing up to the deeply unpopular George Bush." How "deeply unpopular" was Bush in the run-up to Iraq War?? Seems I recall almost all of Congress voting for the war option (including Hillary Clinton). It is also far more accurate to say that the truly devastating Euro war opposition came from Jacques Chirac of France and his Foreign Minister, both of whom did everything possible to thwart Bush's plans for Iraq & Saddam Hussein. This included their threatening Turkey over Euro union membership in order to thwart the opening of that second USA front via Turkey, which 2nd front might have stunted the subsequent Iraqi insurgency,...and at least have put far MORE troops onto the ground in Iraq initially. The reasons for Chirac's intransigent obstructionism had little to do with Euros hating a "deeply unpopular" Bush at that relatively early date, but rather as we now know of it, EVERYTHING to do with that UN "Oil For Food Program" of mass corruption on a truly historic scale, ....as well as long-standing curiously corrupt ties to Saddam Hussein by these particular French leaders alone back then (not to mention some Euro attachments to Saddam's oil).

The entire column is undermined by the initial assertion that Gore "should" have been President:

1. Nearly every recount done by several news organizations after the Supreme Court decision resulted in a Bush win of the Florida electoral votes. It required a very specific and tortured interpretation of the vote to come up with a Gore victory - ironically, just the one proposed by James Baker at the time.

2. The "Gore won" argument also ignores the weeks of confusion following the election and how ridiculous the "hanging chad" debates got. The longer the debate would have gone on, the less legitimate the result would have seemed. As anybody familiar with leadership knows, at some point a decision has to made - nearly always with imperfect information. Those not in agreement with the Supreme Court decision have to supply an answer to what would they have done with the subsequent press recounts that showed a Bush victory? If you think the Supreme Court reasoning was somewhat thin on awarding the vote to Bush, on what basis would they have awarded the vote to Gore?

3. Gore proved his unsuitability for President with his concession/retraction. If he can't make that decision properly and stick with it for 24 hours, how would he have fared as President?

4. He has proved his unsuitability for the office, by tacitly allowing doubt to be cast on the legitimacy of Bush's presidency. If he had learned anything of government, it is that, after the election, the fight is over. If the legitimacy of the government is continually in question, the entire state is divided and hobbled. He has not realized that "President Gore" is less important than "President of the United States".

As to how much more "competent" a Gore administration would have been, that is entirely wishful thinking. The best his mentor and predecessor could come up with that the presidency was a really cool way to meet babes. I'm not sure what military he would have invaded anybody with because his own initiatives significantly cut the ranks of the military and seemed intent on antagonizing those that were left.

The idiotic question deserved and idiotic answer,but why such a long one.

All the brilliant statisticians here conveniently ignore the fact that Al-Qaeda began plotting against the U.S. in the Bill Clinton years. Thus, Al Gore would have inherited a problem that Bill Clinton refused to deal with, just as Bush did. You could come up with a million arguments for not dealing with the problem, but that would not make it go away. So yeah, go ahead and blame Bush for all the problems that were left in his hands by Clinton and by Al Gore.

Mr. Martinez,
right on! As a Gore supporter and knowing that Gore won and bush was selected by a junta but to make the claim that 9/11 would not have occured under Gore is CRAZY BS!! (No way Gore would have headed that attack off, either.)
And yes, Gore might have done much as Mr. Martinez said (or so I hope) but of course, a trained monkey could best the cheney puppet bush-whack. So, to compare Gore results to bush-whack is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Cripes. Is THIS bunkum, or what? Obviously, this clown is mathematically challenged, like most idiot MSM journalists, and does not understand the laws of simultaneous probability. This guy is so dumb, he is probably Fred Hiat in disguise.

To recap: If you have a 50-50 chance of flipping heads or tails on a single toss, you have a 1/4 chance of flipping two heads or tails in a row, 1/8 chance of 3 heads, 1/16 of 4 heads etc. Why? Because sumltaneous probaility is computed by MULTIPLYING probabilities.

So --let me demonstrate why his comments are fatuous with the following conservative assumptions:

>Gore also ignores intelligent reports and doesn't help empower the FBI field agents chasing these guys, so 9-11 occurs: 95%

>Gore invades Afghanistan 100%
> Gore invades Iraq --80%
>Gore ignores warnings from the State Dept and career military and goes without adequate "boots on the ground" --60%
>Gore is too antsy to actually build multinational concensus, so goes without significant international troops and funding --50%
>Gore dissolves the standing Iraqi military --50%
>Gore ignores the rising insurgency for 3 years --50%
> Gore send ideological unqualified zealots to rebuild the country --50%
> Gore cuts taxes by an unbelievable amount while funding the war with IOUs --20%

I believe that these estimates are very much higher than the ACTUAL probabilities--nonetheless,the SIMULTANEOUS probability of all tthese events occurring, even with these absurdly high single point estimates, is just over 1%!

Where does WaPo FIND these idiots?

The Post is crazy to publish columnists with views such as this. It diminishes the credibility of the publication. ???The columnist argues a President Gore would have invaded and occupied Iraq after 9-11??? Remember how much fearmongering and deception it took the Bush administration to make a case for invasion (including alleging strategic connections between Baghdad and al Qaeda and nuclear and biological weapons programs based on scant and faulty evidence) and even then it had to ram it down the throats of the international community? I'm stunned.

Patent nonsense. What this article says, once you strip away all the hooey, is that Al Gore would have ordered the invasion of country that hadn't attacked us and would have trumped up bogus "intelligence" to support that decision.

Would he also have met in secret with the heads of the major oil companies and stonewalled the American public on what was said? You're reaching, son.

Would a Gore presidency have stopped 9/11, I'm not sure. But there is a precedent for a large scale terrorist attack in the U.S. by al Queda being stopped - the 2000 Millenium Attacks that did not occur. The one aimed at U.S. territory was targetted at LAX. It appears that it was luck that all three parts of this attack (on LAX, on the USS Sullivan, and in Jordan) were stopped. But were they stopped because we had an administration in office that was focussed on the possibility of them, paid attention to intelligence briefings on possible terrorist attacks, and transmitted the possibility and the need for diligent security efforts to all levels of the military, government and law enforcement? I think so. But in reality we will never know. Would the 9/11 plots (or at least some of them) been disrupted if the Bush administration had deemed it worthy to seriously consider the August 6th memo and transmitted that message to all levels of the military, government and law enforcement, including airport security? We will never know, but it is a distinct possibility. Also, human nature being what it is, could the transmitting of this information via mass media (as happened in late 1999 re: potential terrorism around the Millenia) caused the average citizen to be more attentive and the terrorists to be more nervous (possibly causing an error on their part)? We will never know, but it could have happened. In short - because Bush didn't take the threat seriously 9/11 happened and there was little to no possibility that it wouldn't have. If the threat would have been taken seriously, as the millenium terrorist plots in retrospect were, some or all of the results may have been avoided. But its history and we can't go back and relive it to see what the alternatives are - we can just suggest hypothetical alternatives - and this one I believe is a valid one based on the result of another planned and attempted terrorist plot on U.S. soil that failed.

I'm not sure this commentary is nothing more than an overtly defensive posture against the held belief that the press did not protect the USA against the Bush Push for war.

The Bush family has a record of antagonizing effects on terrorists abroad, and may have invited an attack. The weak Bush response to the Cole disaster certainly did not stop further terrorists against American soil. This is only a Red and Blue issue to far-right denialists.

The Bush family also had a record of being judged weak by Saddam Hussein.

In light of current testimony that Dick Cheney suppressed testimony regarding the dangers of Global warming, it is also more feasable to entertain the idea he suppressed evidence that could support a case against going to war with Iraq.

I'm a weary conservative. I've grown tired of the politics, spin and outright lies that has led this nation to military and economic disaster.

I'm most frustrated by conservative-leaning writers who chose to publish lies in articles like this one.

Brian Richards

What a bunch of Hooey! While I agree that 9/11 would probably have happened, that's where the assumptions start to break up. We might have gone to war in Afghanistan. But Iraq? Highly unlikely. This was a cooked up war from the start and, by the way, Gore said so before it began. These sorts of speculations are useless to begin with, but to use the forum for ridiculous mischaracterizations is nefarious.

Arguing against a letter from some lunatic is no better than critiquing an empty strawman argument. Or in my case in this instance, critizing Andres Martinez' pointless column.

First: The article by Andres Martinez is obviously inflammatory to get reactions. This especially because it is a hypothetical question like, what would happen, if your father did not meet your mother...
A question of causal theory? May be. But sure enough, no one can truly predict any past outcome since there are to many factors involved, easily overlooked.
Second: Sure, there would be a notable difference in all of our lives today. But do not underestimate the powers and callousness of the Bush's.
What no one seems to recognize is, that George Herbert Walker Bush (Senior) is actually the spiritus rector of most evil things happen.
Why? Because he is a fast learner (could be a gene of his grave robber father). During his escapade as DCI, when he served as the 11th Director of Central Intelligence for just 355 days from 1976 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, he learned very well the trade of his idol, John Edgar Hoover (1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation In office March 22, 1935 - May 2, 1972). You have to read history to see how that all fits together.
G.H.W. Bush developed a very special database and a very sophisticated way how to use it. You have to give him credit for that. Bush Senior's way of sophisticated "Blackmail" is so persuadable that he even could get his most feebleminded son into the seat of the presidency.
To understand all this you truly have to read history, especially those of the Main Actors involved, see their affiliations, associations and where they came from. Check out their carriers and you will begin to see important cross connections.
But back to the issue: The entire Iraq Affair, was planned since 1997 as a distraction from to obvious shortcomings of George Walker Bush, Jr. and to pay back the funds given by special interest groups (Oil, Defense, Banks, etc.) to gain back power in 2001. There is so much evidence available; especially easy to research via the Internet that we can all say today "It was all in the open, just no one wanted to see it."
Her comes also the third point into play, almost 50% of Americans (minimum of those who voted in 2000) did fall for the Bush / Cheney propaganda and again in 2003. That is a very important factor, easy overlooked by all these who now feel like collaborators to the evil man.
I have to insert here, that it seems to be an American trade, to blame others for own shortcomings or bland failures. Do not forget, that 50% of Americans voted for this moron and did fall for his decisive propaganda. Also blame yourself first before you blame him or any one else. It is American laziness not to evaluate their candidates properly, rather fall for the Rash Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Dan Rather and co single-minded propaganda.
As to the 9/11 events, they seem to have been planned very well and where executed in a style similar to Dick Cheney's, David Addington and co. Coincident? You decide after you made yourself more familiar with facts and events.
Iraq, there is no question was planned long before it took place. Coincident again? It also was a well-planned strategy of Dick Cheney and co.
Be earnest. George Walker Bush, Jr. has not and never had a sufficient intelligence quotient to pass ever since grammar school (and that is a proven fact).
This goes too long to explain all points here. But it is appalling to read all these comments on this site, where most are just by feeling (could be right) but some very misguided and some plain out at the same IQ as Bush.
No, we would be not at the same crossroads with Al Gore as President, but on different ones. Good or bad? Who knows, no one can predict that.

Gee whiz, Andres, apparently you would be "stumped" to figure out if the dog with his teeth in your butt was the one that bit you.

As repeatedly stated in these comments, any sane person (not the neo-cons or slobbering fathful Repubs)knows that any traffic cop could have listened to experts in place: Richard Clarke, Scott Ritter et al, and followed their advice at any point to avert this needless disaster.

But, gosh Andes, Bush didnt. I wonder if Bush/Cheney/neocon Inc. had thier own agenda for keeping power and milking this huge country of ours?

Gosh, I just cant tell, Im "Stumped."

For someone that went to law school, you try awfully hard to be an idiot.

Gee, I wonder if you and the Post are milking our sorry citizens too....

Based on Stumped's analysis, I know I never need read anything by Mr. Martinez again. He seems blind to his own flawed biases and his thinking is just not worth my time.

Stumped is right on in this post. Despite what we Americans believe, this country doesn't have infinite room to maneuver. Geopolitical imperatives dictate the vast majority of what we can do. The 9/11 attacks, for instance, compelled an attack on Afghanistan--this seems beyond question--and, although Iraq obviously had nothing to do with the attacks, an attack on Iraq or some similarly bold initiative in the heart of the Middle East was made necessary by them so as to avoid signaling to all the would-be sponsors of terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia among them, that America was no longer a paper tiger that would cut and run from a place like Somalia after suffering 18 casualties there in one day or that would respond to suicide attacks on its men and materials, such as the one in Beirut, by packing up and going home without much in the way of retaliation. Of course, this says absolutely nothing about how either war was handled, nor about the complete lack of a national call to arms--no, telling people to continue shopping doesn't count--after 9/11, and since Gore, unlike Bush, wasn't a draft-dodger, he may have had the credibility to mobilize the nation far more effectively for war. He also understood something that Bush and his cronies in the oil industry did not, that energy independence was the best way of ensuring that we could eventually disengage from that cesspool of the world known as the Middle East. Perhaps Gore would have made a much greater effort to raise fuel economy standards and take other measures to ensure our energy independence right after 9/11, so that, instead of transferring billions of dollars a day to regimes like Saudi Arabia that preach hate across the world and instead of deeming it necessary to defend those regimes from regional foes, that money would be staying at home, ensuring a higher and cleaner standard of living for the American people.

If you are still waiting for some cash to trickle down from the wealthy class, don't forget that Bush alone mailed out STIMULUS CHECKS to ALL TAXPAYERS. Bush really needs to feel your love for america, so get out of your shacks (or, tents) and BUY SOMETHING -- preferably "Made in America".

So get over it, stop whinning about Bush. He is doing the best he can for OIL and democracy in the Middle East.

Posted by: Richard Morris | July 8, 2008 4:46 PM
===========

Good grief Morris...

Go away

Posted by: Michael | July 8, 2008 4:52 PM

===========
Mike,

Put your tongue back in your cheek and try reading it again!

August 6th Presidential Briefing

Title: "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US"

Would Gore have stopped it? Maybe, but probably not.

Would have Gore done this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wobKUZN7dDg

H3LL NO!

Mr. Martinez is a moron. Gore would not have invaded Iraq; the UN inspections were working and proved to be accurate. Evidence after the invasion proves that there were no weapons of mass deception and that the sactions were working. I'm not sure about 9/11, maybe they would have heeded the warnings and been able to piece together the reports of the highjackers taking flying lessons. The county's response and focus after 9/11 would have been different and our standing in the world today would be much better. Million of people would not have experienced the effects of war in Iraq. We would not have lost so many of our civil liberties and we wouldn't have bills named by marketing people (The Patriot Act) stripping our Civil Liberties. I don't know if we will ever recover from the mistakes and directions this administration has taken us. We apparently are a country of morons; we elected this Jacka$$ twice.

Skipping right to the nonsense about Gore making the same stupid mistake and invading Iraq, we don't have to speculate about whether he would have been that moronic. He gave a very strong and unequivocal speech PRIOR to our invasion, telling us how wrong - to the point of criminality - it would be to attack Iraq. I doubt that he based that on anything more than what he already knew about Iraq, and he was smart enough to conclude it was not a danger of any sort, and it certainly had nothing to do with 9/11.

Is there a chance the writer of this article is intelligent? I think not.

Al Gore said, "You haven't seen anything yet". I think he was telling the truth. The republican propaganda machine that controls radio and TV and destroys anything against their priorities by declaring it liberal or Democrat, has yet to learn the meaning of liberal. Gore could of worked 1 month as president and done better than Bush did in 8 years. We'll never know what might of been. The dignity of America can be restored in the world by hanging George Bush. I recently read Bush was a good Fund raiser. Any simple pilfer or wright off to the U.S. treasury would be in his aptitude of excellence.

How is Scott Ridder doing? If there is someone out there who knows, since the press hasn't followed up on him, would you report?

Posted by: W. Reddick Turner | July 8, 2008 3:55 PM

Scott Ritter is alive and well and is writing. Check him out at:

http://sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=node/view/3060

It is ridiculous to suppose that the same scenario would have unfolded under a Gore presidency as under Bush. Your own supposition that the USA under Gore could not have prevented 9/11 is valid, however your second supposition that Gore would have gone in to Afghanistan with a much larger force (and probably with a wider alliance that might well have included greater Russian cooperation) is even more valid. The general outcome there could therefore have been very different. As for Iraq, airstrikes would not have necessarily escalated to a war and it is far more probable that Gore would have had (as you admit) wider consensus before going in to any adventure in Iraq. While we can not really know what the results might be, the wider consensus that Gore might have sought would certainly have provided a different scenario on the ground. As for the failure in Iraq, not only was the small size of the force a hinderance, but that the Iraqi army and security forces should have been dismissed after the invasion, and no plans prepared for the reconstruction of the country, it seems to me that the more competent governance of the Clinton administration and what might have been a more experienced and competent Gore administration would certainly at the least not have opened the doors to the type of expansion of Iranian influence that the Bush incompetancy has wrought.

If Gore had been President 9/11 would have still occured but we certainly wouldn't be in the quagmire we currently are in in Iraq. The focus would have been Afghanistan and I suspect that Osama bin Laden would have fled that country and been forced to hide out somewhere else while keeping a lower profile than he currently is. I suspect that economic sanctions would have been imposed on Iraq even further and being cut off further from the rest of the world Iraqi's may have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein on there own by now. Iraq would probably have been forced to restructure their government and in order to maintain their oil infrastructure and the United States and Russia would be giving them aid and working to keep Iran from taking over Iraq.

Uh...Gore would certainly have listened to reports entitled "Bin Laden Intent on Using Planes...etc." Gore would not have hired an Attorney General who told his underlings he didn't want to hear another word about Al-Qaeda. And it strains credulity to suggest that invading Iraq would have been deemed prudent. Gore would certainly have been less likely to populate his staff with the types of credulous boobs who lent credibility to "Curveball" among others.

This commentary is quite a barren display of mendacity if you ask me, for no discernible reason as far as I can tell. If you love Bush so much why don't you marry him?

Perhaps if Al Qaeda had been a priority we would not have had a National Security Advisor who was a Soviet and East Block military expert, like Rice. Perhaps Richard Clarke would have been promoted instead of ignored.

Whoa...Andres.... sit down! I suspect that the alien probes have affected your judgment and will continue to affect it for some time to come. First, the transition from Vice to POTUS would have been so much smoother and his administration would have appreciated the warnings in a more timely manner than the "out of its depths" Bush Administration. Second, Gore likes dogs and would not be kicking Iraq when AlQ and their home base in Afghanistan are the problems. It is really hard for me to imagine Al Gore cooking the books on Iraq. What would be his motivation? Whoa Andres take a deep breath and re-enter this world. Oh, now I get it! I'm sorry. You were just trying to get us engaged, using Einstein's thought experiments. Of course. Oh! Silly me. Oh! Silly American People. Oh! Silly thousands of dead American Service men and women. Oh! Silly dead Iraqi citizens. Oh! Silly bankrupted country. Of course we can talk about this dispassionately and in a non-partisan way. After all it really wasn't a big deal. Michael

Gore wouldn't have bushwhacked the U.S. into war with Iraq because he wasn't consumed by the oil lust that drives the Shrub. Unnatural desires lead to unnatural acts.

This is a ridiculous argument but needless to say I think we probably would have been attacked on 911 regardless of who was president. I do believe that a rational clear thinking individual not driven by ignorance, greed and too much testosterone, ie Bush and Cheney, would have opened a war front in Iraq before bringing the Taliban down and Osama to justice unless we had been attacked by that country[Iraq]. Iraq was not in response to 911 but the Republicans and some Deomcrats or faux Republicans like Lieberman, the president and this columnist persist in spinning that lie and many of us are tired of their mendacity and tired of them accusing anyone who doesn't see things their way as being unpatriotic and without courage. Where's the courage in seeing 4,000 plus American soldiers dying for naught?

There should be absolutely, unequivocally no doubt that President Gore would NEVER have gone to war with Iraq. Good God, there weren't more than three people in Bushs' own administration that were on board with the idea. This pathetic excuse for an column is probably the most proposterous thing I've read all year. I mean, what do you have planned for your next crack reporting case Andres, assessing how President Humphrey would have handled the Watergate scandal? Maybe you could ponder the struggles George HW Bush would have had explaining he, "never had sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinski". Give me a break, US Weekly woulnd't print this crap!

Gore would not have invaded Iraq for at least two reasons:

1. He would have had to mount an incredibly large and violent action in Afganistan in retaliation for 9/11 in an effort to quell the howling outrage, and near civil insurection, that would have been fostered by the Republican Right. The Right would have immediately accused Gore of virtual treason for "allowing" 9/11 to occur. The size of the force sent to Afganistan in an effort to demonstrate Gore's resolve would have left few forces available for Iraq.

2. Gore would have been impeached for "allowing" 9/11 to occur before he would have had time to mobilize a force for Iraq.

We should not forget the vitriol of the Republican Right in 2000-2001. They literally mobilized violent mobs to stop vote recounts. The partisans on the Supreme Court threw away their principles to award Bush the presidency and then had the gall to declare that no one could ever repeat the trick. Even if a Gore election had not triggered debilitating civil strife, the 9/11 attack during a Gore presidency likely would have.

I liked Gore in 2000, and still do, and still think him the best person we have for the presidency. But I thank Almighty Providence that he was not president on 9/11, for I otherwise fear our nation might not have survived intact.

Good grief Morris...

Go away

Very well done article. The broad outlines would almost certainly have been the same for the reasons cited. The little things that turn into big news are impossible to forecast of course, but no President (Bush, Gore, or whomever) has the time to delve into such details. If they had turned out differently it would have had nothing to do with who is in the Oval Office.

Sorry folks, but neither Gore nor Bush have the time to even deal with airport security policy generally, much less personally frisk the passengers as some seem to expect.

Why do people make such a fuss over the competence of George Bush and assume that someone else could have done a better job as president?

It is hard to imagine that the Bush team could so competently manage the congress, the mainstream media, and the United Nations so as to make a compelling case for invading Iraq, and then turn around and mismanage the occupation.

It might be easier to paint Bush as a master of politics. He has dominated the world's leaders, and especially the Middle East. It looks like his plan is based on a simple assumption: OIL production is the key to political and economic success. Which is to say, Bush is an OIL man who has harnessed the world. He alone visited Saudi Arabia and asked for more OIL. He alone has resisted the temptation to bomb Iran, instead relying on diplomacy, because he knows disrupting Iran's OIL is bad for business. He alone has prodded Congress to drill for more oil in Alaska, and off shore. Bush's vision for world domination of oil resources is breath taking.

Unfortunately, most americans don't appreciate everything Bush has done to increase OIL production. He has provided OIL corporations and OIL executives with tax breaks. Bush knows that OIL companies need more cash than any other industry, because it is so expensive to scout new oil fields. Bush has supported the ailing american auto industry, by moving manufacturing to Canada and Mexico (where there are more willing and able non-union workers). This allows the auto industry to build cars and trucks at a lower cost. Bush alone has stood up to the mean green people, who insist on driving up manufacturing costs. Bush knows that protecting the environment is an unneeded manufacturing cost.

But perhaps, most importantly, Bush has understood the pain of average americans, when he stated, "americans are addicted to OIL". Bush has done his best to satisfy this addiction with his energy policy. You can't really blame him for increased gasoline prices, when those pesky democrats have failed to legislate his detailed policy manual outlining "OIL ADDICTION AND ITS CURES".

So stop fantasizing about someone else as president. Bush is the ONE and ONLY OIL MAN who understands america's energy policy. VIVA LA BUSH. Wealthy people really like Bush's tax plan too!

If you are still waiting for some cash to trickle down from the wealthy class, don't forget that Bush alone mailed out STIMULUS CHECKS to ALL TAXPAYERS. Bush really needs to feel your love for america, so get out of your shacks (or, tents) and BUY SOMETHING -- preferably "Made in America".

So get over it, stop whinning about Bush. He is doing the best he can for OIL and democracy in the Middle East.

If the Supreme Court had voted for Gore, the country would have been in much better shape. And more importantly we will not have Obama as a candidate. Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, If Gore was the president, he would have continued Clinton's policy of containment, and the US would not have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in countries that are not ours. And more importantly, not a single American soul or American soldier would have been lost to serve the interest of the Oil and Gas. Every night when I see the number of the wounded and dead increasing on TV, I think why the special interest in Bush era so strong that they pushes the country to the Jungle of Iraq and Afghanistan. And as a result we pay more than 4 dollar gas. If Gore was president, the US would have enjoyed a much better image overseas as a beacon of hope and democracy rather as the host of Guantanamo, Abu Graib, secret evidence, and the Patriot Act. Just imagine if Gore was president and all this money wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan been directed to improve our daily life as American by directing funds toward schools, hospitals, educations, universities, Peace Corp, roads, and bridges. If there were one decision that worsen America's position here and over seas, it would have been the decision to take the presidency from Gore to Bush.

There's someone engaging in a hyper-partisan alternative-history fantasy, and it's not Mr. Schesel.

Got any more GOP talking points, Mr Martinez? Because clearly, you don't have anything else.

A few years ago, I stopped wondering why putzes like Martinez have jobs that don't require hairnets, and started wondering why a paper like the Post--which used to be the sort of newspaper that Americans would point to when explaining why the First Amendment was so vital to democracy--decided they'd rather be the courtiers and lickspittles of this administration.

I know two things...

There are two men...Bush and Gore

When each is alone and looks at himself in the mirror, really reflects upon who and what he is....Gore can at least say he won and handled the theft of his winning with class.
Bush on the other hand has to live with the fact he didnt win, knows he didnt, stole something from someone who did win and honestly thats just flat out butt ugly.
There is nothing worse then a cheater except a cheater who convinces himself he deserves to cheat.
Talk bout a small little man.

Your leap from Gore in Afghanistan to Gore in Iraq is mind-boggling. What reason have we to believe that a Gore administration would have distorted "evidence" so ruthlessly? Nor do I think that it is obvious that Gore would have declared the Geneva Convention null and void, or that he would have invoked a phony "war" to expand executive powers considerably beyond those of George III. You've been drinking that free koolade at the White House.

Bush v. Gore: The approach Gore would have taken would have been drastically different. He would have had the intellectual capacity to appreciate what Colin meant when he warned: "Break it, you own it." Nor would Gore have relinquished his Presidency to one, Dick (Tricky Dick, II) Chaney.

No. The mess we're in now would never have been under a Gore Presidency. It is pure folly to suggest that there would have been no difference between the two!

The fact that Gore came out against the Iraq war BEFORE we invaded is a better indicator of what he likely would have done as president than the strained argument within this piece that Gore would have been for the Iraqi war because Clinton might have attacked Iraq had he not been concerned about the Balkans. Huh? Only a completely irresponsible president like Bush would leave a 1/2 finished war -- with folks who ACTUALLY ATTACKED US -- to fight folks who hadn't. Clinton wasn't that irresponsible. There is no reason to believe Gore would have been either.

& one thing you forgot -- there's no reason to believe that Gore would have enacted the Bush torture policy.

& as for whether Gore would have prevented 9/11, I agree that no government can prevent all disasters. But in the Democrats' favor, you could have noted that when the intelligence community was "blinking red" before 2000, Clinton didn't go on vacation & didn't fail to get more than one briefing from his CIA director for an entire month as Bush did. Instead, Clinton sat in on daily meetings among the FBI, CIA, etc. to be sure they were paying attention to any leads. & you know what? Clinton did stop a plot timed for New Year's 2000. & I believe Gore was partially involved in that preventative effort. So Gore might have taken that same kind of preventative action. Maybe it would have worked; maybe it wouldn't have but all we know from Bush is that going fishing & shrugging it off didn't work.

Also, the French managed to stop a plot to use commercial planes as missiles to blow up the Eiffel Tower. Since Gore isn't a reflexive Francophobe, he might have been open to help from them. In any event, stop the lie that no one could imagine using planes as missiles before 9/11. If the French were able to not just imagine but to discover & to thwart such a plot, we should have been at least able to imagine it. Bush, Rice, et. al. have the entire US Treasury at their disposal to push their talking points -- shouldn't you think for yourself?

If the Supreme Court had voted for Gore, the country would have been in much better shape. And more importantly we will not have Obama as a candidate. Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, If gore was the president he would have continued Clinton's policy of containment, and the US would not have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in countries that are not ours. And more importantly, not a single American soul or American soldiers would have been lost to server the interest of the Oil and Gas. Every night when I see the number of the wounded and dead increasing on TV, I think why the special interest in Bush era so strong that that they push the country to the Jungle of Iraq and Afghanistan. If Gore was president, the US would have a much better image overseas as a beacon or hope and democracy rather as the host of Guantanamo and the Patriot act. Just imagine if Gore was president and all this money wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan been directed to improve American life including schools, hospitals, educations, roads, bridges. If there were one decision that changed America to a worse condition, it would have been the decision to take the presidency from Gore to Bush.

Gore's only concern would have been the effect of the burning towers on global warming. Our national security would not have been on his mind.

I utterly disagree with your Iraq statement, as many others below likewise disagree. There is simply no way Gore would have invaded Iraq.

I also disagree that Gore would not have prevented 9/11. Why? Because, when a memo crossed a President Gore's desk stating, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States", he would not have sat and twiddled his thumbs. Instead, Gore would very likely have used POLICE ACTION to actively work to prevent Bin Laden's plans. It is quite likely Gore would also have actively exerted both political and physical pressure directly upon Bin Laden and his operatives, so as to force mistakes on their part allowing the police action to accumulate and act upon evidence and leads such mistakes bring to light.

So yes, I agree with the original email to which you respond. Under Al Gore, it is highly unlikely that 9/11 would have occurred (in the manner in which it did, at the VERY least), and it is a near certainty that Iraq would not have been invaded and occupied.

Hey Steve, dont be so surprised. Martinez is evidently a neo-con shill (i.e. avoiding obvious FACTS that show Bush WANTED to go to war, Gore did not) that the Post sees fit to put on htier payroll.

What crap, and to think the Post actually had real journalists in the days of "Deep throat" and the last pathetic President....
Martinez could have written for that White House.

""I am flabbergasted to read Martinez's belief that a Gore presidency wouldn't have altered the trajectory of the 9/11 attacks.""

We're about to make the same mistake that was made in 2000: Bush, becaue he has the most money, bought favorable press coverage. Is that what we're witnessing, again? Without a voting record of any significance, what do we really know about the current leader? We know that he speaks well. We know that when he speaks well, he speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

There is an expression in certain parts of the Black community that goes like this: A lie ain't nothing for a _igger to tell. If Hillary had had some conscious brothers and sisters in her camp and a few more who haven't been living the easy life so long, one or more of them would have advised her to pose the the question to her opponent using somewhat the same tone of voice:
-gger, pleeeze!

I know Obama was raised in Hawaii by folks from Kansas, but can he be so blind as to not see the danger of gun laws he's so quick to embrace? I thought he was a Harvard graduate. Don't they teach students to see beyond their own immediate noses?

Gore who surely was privy to the Al Queda threat and bin Laden would have focused on Afghanistan instead of pressuring the CIA "to find" a link to Iraq. He certainly didn't have a motive to get the man who tried to get his daddy.

Andres, you're off your rocker if you think President Gore would have invaded Iraq. This is the kind of mushy thinking and rationalization that leads folks to think that there's really no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

The "Iraq Caused 9/11" narrative was advanced by chickenhawk neocons drunk with the power of the White House. No neocons, no war. Pretty straightforward.

What drug are you on? Must be the same one Bush has been taking. Comparing Bush to Gore is like comparing Nixon to the Pope,a monkey to an elephant,and Obama to McCain.

Does anyone out there recall the name of Scott Ridder? That brave, heroic serviceman did everything within his power to alert the public and to force politicians (Republicans and Democrats, alike) to reconsider their headlong charge into battle against the Muslim World. Of course that is not how we see it. But, for them, the attack and savage slaughter of innocent Iraqi men, women and children (Muslims all) by our smart-bombs-that weren't so smart-is nothing more and nothing less and all out attack against Muslims.

Scott tried to warn us and to steer us down another course. Guess what happened. The media that today is going all out to decide our current election, covered Scott. But,they did so in such a manner as to make him appear unpatriotic or irrational.

Ridder deserves the highest award this country has to offer for his effort to save the lives of more than 4,000 Americans who lost their lives, while in uniform. In addition, he deserves an award from the United Nations for putting his livlihood, indeed, his life on the line in an attempt to save the innocent Iraqis who have died.

If the American people don't wake up and wake up soon, we will remain on this single track to destruction. If the media-type succeed in picking our President for us this time, they, as a class, will never relinquish the power to do so. In fact, they will be embolden. Our President, and other elected-officials, should be chosen by the American people. Reporters and pundits are too few in numbers, and much too ignorant, to be the main determining class to choose the leader of the free world.

How is Scott Ridder doing? If there is someone out there who knows, since the press hasn't followed up on him, would you report?

Perhaps one day we will actually bring Bush forward to face accountability for his criminal Presidency rather then judge Gore on 8 years that never happened for him.
You people who support Bush owe the rest of us ONE PRESIDENCY, TWO TERMS, ALOT OF MONEY, and an APOLOGY!

Andres

Your comments about 9/11 are viable. Your comments about Iraq, completely untrue. 9/11 may have happened, and Afghanistan probably would have happened. Iraq would never have happened. Too many experts and foreign leaders around the world were strongly opposed to the invasion. The UN called it illegal, and as Al Gore's ancestors were party to the foundation of the UN he no doubt has a deep respect for the organisation.

Bush was all about partisanship and unilateralism, and big contracts for his best buddies. Moreover, the weapons inspectors, Hans Blix, demonstrated almost beyond doubt that Saddam had NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. If you had lived in Europe you would have read that news. But the US media was complicit in the Bush doctrine of US expanisism and the grab for oil and all the lies. Lots and lots of them.

Iraq was never about Saddam Hussein or WMD. It was about oil and only those with powerful oil connections in the White House could have dreamt up such a catastrophic blunder and lie.

Let's face it, if Zimbabwe or the Sudan had oil, those despots would have also met the same fate and Saddam.

Al Gore would have worked across party lines for the best advice and his interests would have been about America and bin Laden, not oil and big contracts for the boys.

Your conclusion, that if Gore had been president he would have invaded Iraq is not only wrong, it is dangerous. Here's why it's wrong:

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html

In this 2002 speech, Gore argued against invading Iraq because it would distract from the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, and that the ill-conceived policy of pre-emptive war had no international support. Furthermore, if Gore had access to the actual intelligence, instead of the propaganda released by Bush, it is certain that he would NOT have invaded Iraq.

It is clear from Scott McClellan's book that Bush invaded Iraq as part of an ill-conceived grand strategy to spread democracy throughout the Middle East by force. The book also talks about Bush's "permanent campaign mode" which lead to the firing of Democrats and hiring based on Republican loyalty rather than competence.

It is likely that a Gore presidency would have retained qualified anti-terrorism experts, reducing the probability of a successful 9/11 attack. But I agree, the 9/11 attacks probably would have happened under Gore, but the Iraq invasion definitely would NOT have happened!
-----
And here's why your conclusion is dangerous:

We're faced with a clear choice in this election regarding Iraq.

Obama: Give the military the mission to responsibly withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible, and focus on the war on terror.

McCain: "Victory" at all costs ("I will never surrender in Iraq, my friends. I will never surrender.")

The Republican strategy, which you obviously support, is to repeat the "Big Lie" pretending that Obama and McCain do not differ on Iraq. Under Obama, the U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq. Under McCain, withdrawal depends on an unlikely "victory", i.e. by establishing a stable, multi-ethnic democracy in Iraq.

I believe the current reduction in violence in Iraq resulted from a temporary truce between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions after their segregation into enclaves, done through violent "ethnic cleansing." World history since 1900 suggests that multi-ethnic countries are only held together by occupiers or by tyrannical regimes. Ending the occupation or tyranny results in the expulsion or genocide of ethnic minorities, or the creation of multiple new nations along ethnic lines, i.e. as happened with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, British India, British Palestine, Turkey, etc.

And remember that the United States started out as a democracy of white males only, requiring civil war, and hundreds of years to evolve into the current multi-ethnic democracy.

John McCain's inflexible, never surrender, policy aimed at creating a multi-ethnic democracy from a tyranny ensures a likely permanent U.S. occupation of Iraq at close to current troop levels under combat conditions. Iraqi's will not continue their truce with U.S. troops if the occupation becomes permanent.

Barack Obama offers us a flexible withdrawal policy, a more cooperative, diplomatic approach, promise of bi-partisan hiring, and a calm, analytical and intelligent mind capable of adapting to the inevitable challenges to come.

What a lot of nonsense! Points to bear in mind.

Would a different administration have increased airport security after the hi-jack warnings of 8/6 and also 7/6? Maybe; maybe not. It is certainly clear that the Clinton-Gore administration took al Quaeda a lot more seriously than Bush-Cheney so the warnings likely have been read more thoughtfully. Q: What would Sandy Berger have recommended?

If security had been stepped up would one or more of the hi-jackings been prevented as occurred in 1999 because a customs inspector in Port Angeles was given a heads-up on strange or nervous-looking Arabs. There is a good possibility that if that had been done a lot of lives would have been saved but likely not all.

Gore wasn't looking to pick a fight with Iraq and so is unlikely to have "cooked" the intelligence to justify some sort of attack on Iraq. He certainly wouldn't have been taking advice from Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. Assuming some part of 9/11 occurred with loss of life I suspect Gore would have gone after al Quaeda/Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and likely would have done so with an effective effort in Tora Bora and we wouldn't even be talking about Afghanistan today. Bear in mind that Clinton-Gore were affirmatively looking for opportunities to take out Osama and that likely would have continued into the first 8 or 9 months of a Gore administration. Bush-Cheney, as far as we know, was not particularly concerned nor doing anything and not even addressing the issue when called to their attention by Richard Clarke.

So who you vote for can damn well make a difference!

I agree that a Gore presidency may not have prevented 9/11, but I do think it would have prevented the Iraq war and we may even have gotten Osama bin Laden.

Why? A President Gore may not have believed the "intelligence" that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. According to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, the US was sharing its intelligence with the UN Weapons Inspectors, yet the inspectors were finding no WMD. Moreover, the rest of the world was asking the US not to go to world and to wait for the UN inspectors to finish. A competent decision maker would have looked at the failure of our intelligence to be validated by those on the ground and questioned the reliability of that intelligence. A competent decision maker does not go to war based on faulty intelligence. However, Bush had other motivations a president Gore did not. Hussein tried to assasinate Bush's dad. That is personal motivation that Gore didn't have. Letting Iraq off the hook after the first gulf war was considered a failure of the first Bush's presidency. As Bush's own people testified, Bush came into office looking to get Saddam Hussein. As then General Wesley Clark reported, at the pentagon, the brass was calling Saddam Hussein the joke of 9/11 because even though it was known that he had nothing to do with 9/11, 9/11 was going to be the excuse to go after Hussein. I doubt a President Gore would have been so motivated to find an excuse to invade Iraq. There is a difference between air strikes and a full scale invasion leading to nation building.

As for Osama bin Laden, one has to wonder why Bush was so eager to turn his attention to Saddam Hussein when bin Laden was on the verge of capture. After all, bin Laden just attacked the US and Iraq posed no immediate threat. Yet Bush abandoned the pursuit of bin Laden when bin Laden was cornered. Why? Well for one thing, the Bush family has long standing ties with the royal family of Saudi Arabia (the royal family, for example, invested $35 million in Bush's brother's company, Ignite!) and the bin Laden family also has strong ties to the royal family. As Michael Moore documented in FAhrenheit 9/11 by producing actual airline records, the day after 9/11 when all commercial aircraft were grounded, the US quietly ushered members of the bin Laden family out of the US on commercial flights that were otherwise not allowed to fly. One might wonder, why such a special exception was made rather than at least questioning the family members about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. I doubt a President Gore would have shown such allegiance to the Saudis and to the bin Laden family.

1. Before 911 Gore would have listened to Richard Clark about Bin Ladin, instead of postponing the meeting to after 9/11. There might never have been a 9/11.

2. The "threat" from Sadaam Hussain was no where near as great as was the threat to this country when JFK was president. I think Gore would have learned from JFK (as Kennedy learned from the Bay of Pigs), war is awful and good people die. The missiles in Cuba aimed at the US were removed. If we were trying to get Bin Ladin, Iraq is not where he was. Saddam, as bad as he was, was able to keep the terrorists OUT of Iraq.

3. We certainly would not be facing what we are facing in Afghanistan, where we do not have enough troops to deal with the terrorists there.

There is no doubt, that the Iraq war was planned long before the Bush Administration was in place. The Iraq war was PREMEDITATD Fraud, Treason, Murder, Deception of the American People and foreign Dignitaries to cover up and distract from the actually incompetence of George Walker Bush, Jr.

A typical strategy of the Republican Party and any politician, who rather uses deception and cheap propaganda, than to address real issues and concerns.
The danger is, that as long as they are in charge, and being unchallenged, there is still the possibility of more American lives being at jeopardy and Billions of Taxpayers money at risk. The Republican Party and its Leadership are a permanent and present danger to our true National Security. With their acts and manipulations, they initiate all so-called Terrorist activities, here and aboard.

The Democratic Party can only win, with its dilettante Candidate, if they finally have the guts to impeach the entire Bush Administration, otherwise, the Republicans will initiate either one other 9/11 or instigate a new war against Iran.

In either way, we, the American people, will loose since there is no actual alternative candidate available who could take over the position of presenting the United States.

Alternative 1: A totally inexperienced one time Senator with questional background and convictions. Someone who already, not even confirmed, retracts his initial statements, not to speak what will come thereafter.

Alternative 2: An actually patriot but with a mindset of twisted Bush Doctrine. Someone who will surely cost the American People even more death and money then already lost.

Take a pick. You cannot win...

I to find this analysis sadly lacking!

The number of Bush errors regarding the Terrorist treat are numerous, grievous, and significant! Proper action and attention might not have prevented 9/11 but given the Keystone Kops operation, there was plenty of opportunity to have gotten a different result!
Given 9/11 still occurred, I am sure that the Gore Presidency would have had a enormously different approach to this terrible terrorist act.
• Gore would not have acted unilaterally thus rejecting and disposing the universal support for America as a result of this attack.
• Gore would not have used 9/11 as a pretext to seize unconstitutional Presidential powers to further a domestic political agenda
• Gore probably would not have attacked Afghanistan, removing the Taliban; which could be viewed as one of the few accomplishments of George!
• Gore would have attacked the Al Qaeda bases and training camps; probably provoking the Taliban to the same result as George.
• Gore would not have given up on the capture of OBL, diverted critical resources to the Iraq folly, or not gone into the Pakistani tribal areas if that is where OBL fled.
• There would certainly be no Iraqi debacle
• There would be no DHS with its failures from top to bottom
• There would have been an effective and proficient FEMA to address the Katrina disaster
• There would not be thousands of Reserve and National Guard forces killed, crippled, homeless, and jobless
• There would not be any FISA crisis and scandal
• There would be no scandal and crisis in the injustice department
• We would not have a reactionary, near insane Supreme Court
• We might not have a housing crisis as a working regulatory body might have prevented the excessive
• We might not have an economic crisis as the National Debt would still be decreasing from the handy budget surpluses of the 90's extending into the 21st century.
• We would have a real strong dollar rather than the meaningless Georgian rhetoric
• We might have averted the loaming oil crisis, the $5/gallon gas if we had a President with a concern and a little knowledge of the environmental crisis and support for reducing America's dependence on foreign oil.
• We would not have had Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions, Contractor Mercenaries, Waterboarding, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Brownie, Harriet, Bolton, Gonzales, Yu, et al
• The nation would not likely be Fascist in everyway except name only!

Mr.Martinez is clearly a member of the neo-con cabal.To expect a clear and credible answer about this or any other critical question is pure lunacy.

Mr. Martinez is wildly off-base to suggest that a Gore presidency would have side-stepped the UN Security Council, ginned-up non-existant evidence, and decided to commit the war crime of waging a war of aggression against Iraq with no pre-emptive justification. To make these assertions requires some factual foundation that, in this case, is completely absent. Utter claptrap.

Andre.

I agree with you that stopping 9/11 wasn't a given wasn't even likely?, but
in a Gore administration, might not have succeeded, or as spatacularly as it did. You failed to mention Richard Clark, he was to a significant extent frozen out of of providing meaniful input, he in no way was minimizing the potential threat of Al Quida. Let us not forget that the threats of new year 2000 were stopped in part because the threat potential was given credibility up the chain of comand. The noise was evident through the summer of 2001 it went up the chain, but as we all know Bush, preoccupied already with Iraq, dismissed it.so it didnot go back down, if people had listened and responded assertivly who is to say. It would have raise the odds of by a factor of 10 I would conjecture.
I think the odds are good that Gore would not have dumped us into a second, The Iraq War. Again as you comment on the Clinton administration that were not invested into fight 2 wars similtanously. Airstrikes, even airwar doesnot equate with a ground war.
disikoff

Mr. Martinez's response is misleading at best. There is much evidence that a Gore administration would have been more focused on terrorism threats in the first eight months of 2001, would have followed Richard Clarke's advice rather than that of Cheney and the neocons, and _therefore_ would have been more likely to thwart al Qaida's US attack plans.

Bush was and is lazy. He is as much a liar as is Bill Clinton. He's a thug. Rice was and is brittly, pathologically defensive---a disastrous joke as National Security Advisor. There's nothing partisan about those observations. The two are incompetent and dishonest.

If 9/11 had occurred, a Gore administration would have had to remove al Qaida's sanctuary in Afghanistan. How it would have done so is open to discussion. There is not the slightest evidence that Gore would have used 9/11 as an excuse for an illegal invasion of Iraq and a set of unconstitutional anti-democratic measures at home.

The main reason Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq invasion was that she took Bush administraton claims about Iraq at face value, and failed to read the NIE.

In 2002 and 2003, much of the rest of the world---from Hans Blix on down---understood that Bush's claims about Iraq were fictions. There is no reason to expect that a Gore administration would have pursued anything like Bush's criminal enterprise in Iraq.

How did the Clinton administration "underestimate" al-Qaeda? If anything, he was under fire from the right wing for taking steps to FIGHT al-Qaeda, whom the righties had dismissed as "gnats".

When Clinton bombed training camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, when Bin Laden was reported as being there, the Republicans whined "WAG TEH DOG" repeatedly, accusing him of trying to distract from the oh-so-important Lewinsky affair.

When Richard Clarke tried to brief anyone in the Bush administration on Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, he was rebuffed at every opportunity. Again, they were "gnats". The REAL deal was, of course, to be found in missile defense, according to Bush et al.

It's very likely that Clinton could have done MORE. He has said so himself. But to claim that he "underestimated" al-Qaeda, or to think that a Gore administration, which would retain many of the same people, would not have done much, is flatly against the record in every way.

There's no way of telling how much better a theoretical Gore administration would have been -- but there is simply no way it could have been WORSE than the Bush administration's deliberate, thorough, ignorance of the issue.

No Mike, not until garbage excuses and lies stop spilling from Repubs trying to excuse the fiasco of the Iraq war. The attacks will likely continue until those in denial "grow up" and understand it is not worth destroying America's place in the world, to keep political power.

It really is not.

My father died in WWII to make America great. This chimp of a Pres does not have the right to squander our heritage to make a buck for his friends, or lie his way into a war to keep his Presidency.

And by the way, Fox is all that is wrong with this picture. It is entertainment pretending to be news. News is serious; it is life and death. Fox is a hateful joke. This is not about their "petty narrow view," it is about their repeatedly lying about facts - no other news media does that. Its unAmerican, well documented and obvious, if you choose to "grow up."

"God, can we stop this stupid, lame attack.

We all know liberals hate Fox and that their complete intolerance for other opinions forces them to assume that anyone who doesn't share their petty and narrow view of the world must be a conservative shill.

Grow up."

A lot of "what-ifs" here. The record of the Clinton administration was one of underestimating the threat posed by al Qaeda, underestimation that started at the very top and continued for years.

Maybe Gore would have continued that record, maybe not. If his thinking on terrorism was very different from Bill Clinton's he gave no sign of it during the 2000 campaign. Actually, like Clinton, he devoted most of his campaign to domestic issues.

I doubt a President Gore would have chosen to invade Iraq after 9/11. I also don't think it's a sure thing he would have given the CIA and military the free hand Bush did to strike down the Taliban/al Qaeda regime in Afghanistan, either; the Afghanistan campaign looks easy now, but before it happened much thinking about Afghanistan reflected the Soviet experience there, and Gore unlike Bush would have had to contend with a strong anti-military opposition from within his own party.

The biggest difference a Gore administration would have made may be the most obvious: no second acts in the government careers of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, no Alberto Gonzales at the Justice Department, no recasting of the entire Republican Party in the image of George W. Bush. Whatever one thinks of Bush v. Gore -- my personal view is that it cut short a process that would have led to Bush becoming President anyway -- there's no getting away from the damage Bush has done, and allowed to be done, in his eight years in the White House.

Gore would probably have made some of the same mistakes as Bush, and added a few of his own; so would John McCain, had he been nominated and elected in 2000. We're kidding ourselves, though, if we underrate the amount and scope of damage Bush's tenure has done to the American government. Most anyone who has been elected President since the dawn of the 20th Century would have done better, and most anyone who could have been elected President in 2000 would have done better.

Absolutely right on, Helio! Facts actually exist, and arent debatable. Or not in the "fact-based" community where adults live, as opposed to the "I'm the decider" community where childish politicians destroying America live.

"The full speech can be found at globalsecurity dot org, and is the first Google hit when using the search terms "Gore Iraq speech".

ANyone interested in being educated in this matter, unlike bobmoses (or Martinez for that matter) should check it out. THAT's what an adult foreign policy looks like.

Oh, really. So the post right before yours that says Clinton was trying to start the same war, or others about Monica was the only reason he didnt, or that Gore couldnt have run a war, etc. are not "blaming" Dems.

I guess the point is that if your party and your Pres sucked beyond belief at protecting our country, made up stuff to go to war, and had corrupt no-bid contracts, then: "the Dems are bad too, you know. Not just us. And Gore has puffy hair and talks aobut the environment, so there."

Wow, are you Repubs in trouble. And not just for this election, my friends. I think the "adults" will get a chance to run the country for generation or two because of the "w" Pres that you defend. Hey, keep it up.

"This is complete nonsense. Republicans are not trying to blame the Iraq War on Clinton, 2006 Democrats or Al Gore. You are just making stuff up."

Martinez, your analysis skills are not objective nor balanced nor intelligent....do you work for Fox News?"

God, can we stop this stupid, lame attack.

We all know liberals hate Fox and that their complete intolerance for other opinions forces them to assume that anyone who doesn't share their petty and narrow view of the world must be a conservative shill.

Grow up.

Here are the bits of the Gore speech that bobmoses "conveniently" left out (either because he is dishonest or because the far-right blogs that he uses as his sole source of information):

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint."

Here's another good bit:

"But is a general doctrine of pre-emption necessary in order to deal with this problem? With respect to weapons of mass destruction, the answer is clearly not. The Clinton Administration launched a massive series of air strikes against Iraq for the state purpose of setting back his capacity to pursue weapons of mass destruction. There was no perceived need for new doctrine or new authorities to do so. The limiting factor was the state of our knowledge concerning the whereabouts of some assets, and a concern for limiting consequences to the civilian populace, which in some instances might well have suffered greatly."

The full speech can be found at globalsecurity dot org, and is the first Google hit when using the search terms "Gore Iraq speech".

ANyone interested in being educated in this matter, unlike bobmoses (or Martinez for that matter) should check it out. THAT's what an adult foreign policy looks like.

This article deserves 4 Pinocchios.

For Hypothetical President Gore's sake, I hope he would have been able to divert the 9/11 attacks. Can you imagine what the Republican slime machine would have sounded like if a Democrat was President when that happened?

Martinez accuses the questioner of partisanship when his response is pure partisanship and devoid of balanced analysis.

Here are some factors Martinez did not factor in:

The Bush administration transition team rejected Clinton transition team. Bush arrogantly was going to do it his way from the start and childishly rejected any advise, intel, analysis, suggestions, etc. from the Clinton Team. This has been substantiated and documented.

There was an intelligence operation (something Danger) during the summer of 2001, just a few months before 9/11, that identified some of the perpetrators of 9/11 as being in the country. An Army Lt. Col. whose name escapes me now lifted the warning and argued that they be found. Bush administration officials ignored this intelligence and did nothing. In fact the Bush administration silenced this intelligence team including the Lt. Col. and covered it up after 9/11. Could 9/11 have been prevented? the answer should be maybe. Had the Bush administration agressively pursued this intelligence, during the summer, would they have found some of the hijackers prior to 9/11 and exposed the plot? Would they have prevented some or all of the attacks? We will never know but what we do know is that the Bush administration did not do eveything possible to avoid 9/11 with the intelligence they had. I think the Al Gore team would have hotly pursued this intellience and arrests could have been made prior to 9/11.

Had 9/11 happened and the trail of the perpetrators followed to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Gore would have retaliated and contrary to Bush, he would have stayed on task until finishing the job.

Would Al Gore have invaded Iraq? Absolutely not. There was no need to. Iraq was contained by UN oversight. Al Gore would have accepted the intelligence of Germany and the other US European allies that discredited Bush's source for WMD prior to the invasion. Al Gore would also have understood that Iraq had no intercontinental weaponry to have launched these supposed WMD even if Iraq had them. Al Gore would have understood that Iraq posed no immediate treat to our national security. Al Gore would have understood the value of maintaining Hussein as a deterrent to Iran. Al Gore would have understood shift in balance of power in the Middle East if he removed a Sunni and replaced the leadership with a Shiite. Any fool would have understood that by placing the Shias as the ruling power in Iraq, they would align with Iran, the only other Shia nation in the Middle East.

I categorically reject Martinez' analysis about Iraq. Al Gore would not have violated international laws by invading preemtively on a domestically sovereign nation with a lawful ruler who was contained and supervised by the UN. If anything, Al Gore would have supported the UN in maintaining a tight control over Iraq. Al Gore would have kept his eye on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Martinez, your analysis skills are not objective nor balanced nor intelligent....do you work for Fox News?

I am flabbergasted to read Martinez's belief that a Gore presidency wouldn't have altered the trajectory of the 9/11 attacks. First, if the Supreme Court had installed Gore instead of Bush, Richard Clarke's unheeded warnings and plan of attack against Al Qaeda would have been implemented instead of shelved by Condi Rice and Dick Cheney for eight months. Second, the Gore Commission recommendations for implementing airport security through the FAA, which were derailed by the GOP Senate leadership in 1997, would have been implemented by a Gore administration and FAA. Yet none of this makes its way into the assertions.

Lastly, there would have been no Dick Cheney browbeating the CIA or Donald Rumsfeld telling staff to find a way to pin 9/11 on Saddam with a President Gore. Nor would there have been an inept occupation if he had still gone ahead and deposed Saddam. And we wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars on this catastrophe, but none of that seems to have made its way into Martinez's analysis either.

and we would have lost even less had we had the right number of troops to begin and even less then that had we not gone into Iraq in the first place. That would have been a ZERO number.
But thanks for pointing out that ONLY 4000 something troops have lost their lives in Iraq. I am sure we all feel better now.
What an insensitive ridiculous remark.

Actually, your "opinion" is irrelevant. Try reality for a change, and read the rest of his speech.

"In my opinion, if he believed those statements, he should have been for the war.
BTW: Do you think he was lying when he said those thing?"

You see, Gore is just a little bit more experienced than you are in national security matters. He understands that there are lots of tin-pot dictators in the world, screwing around with "weapons" and you dont waste American lives on them. Unless you WANT to go to war to keep your Presidency. The Presidency you are running through the placeholder, "W."

FreeDom's comment toward the bottom is right on the money, and since few are likely to read more than a few comments down, it's worth pointing out now and again, with some addenda:

Clinton was always wary of Saddam's WMD ambitions, it is true, but his policy was always of *containment*, with airstrikes against suspected facilities to destroy their capabilities and deter future work. After the Desert Fox strikes, it was prudent to wait for further intelligence assessments to decide whether the programs had been suspended or resumed.

As we know now, of course, the Bush administration 'massaged' the intelligence, and simply made things up. And keep in mind, according to the most recent Congressional intelligence report, that several key claims of the administration were simply fabricated.

Among these claims were the supposed 'deep underground' bunkers where the WMD programs were supposedly going on. Supposedly, this was the reason a bombing strike (a la Clinton) wouldn't be good enough:the bombs wouldn't penetrate that far, and so a full ground invasion was warranted. Yet there was no evidence to support this claim, and no intelligence agency would stand by it.

Thus, a key reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is *entirely the invention of the Bush administration*.

To claim that Gore would have done the same thing is a similar fantasy.

Absolutely right on! Ditto, ditto, ditto!

"The Republicans are DESPERATE to blame a Democrat for this debacle in Iraq...any Democrat! Blame Bill Clinton, Blame 2006 Congressional Democrats, now blame Al Gore!
The bottom line is this tragic, unnecessary war is all George Bush & Dick Cheney's creation. This is Bush's War and no amount of "Alice and Wonderland" spin will change that fact!"

This is complete nonsense. Republicans are not trying to blame the Iraq War on Clinton, 2006 Democrats or Al Gore. You are just making stuff up.

I find it laughable that liberals just make up attacks that never happened. Obama is riding to the Presidency on these phony attacks, so maybe they are on to something.

You might want to check newspaper accounts and the Congressional Record. The only thing hindering Clinton from a larger Iraq assault was Monica. He was hamstrung by media and his greatest concern, political polls. There were many other attacks prior to the current admin,all documented in the 9/11 Commission Report, and the WTC had already been attacked (we prosecuted that in criminal court, right after Reno fried the folks at Waco.)

Gore can prosecute global warming deniers all he wants. He'd be a complete disaster trying to handle a war. IMO.

And finally, we lost a heck of a lot less troops in this war than we did in the last war the Democratic president started.

Kay Day
The US Report

LOL!! And so true it hurts:

"The response on whether we would have been in Iraq with anyone other then Bush is obvious to the world, nation, and everyone except Andres Martinez.
I dont care if it was Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limabugh, Chevy Chase, Little Richard, my mother, your father, a drunk sailor on shore leave, a girl scout, or whoever, no one would have attacked Iraq over 911."

OK I am a liberal who just happens to not be able to stand Al Gore! Al Gore is the politician's politician! I don't like the guy. But I must agree with your assessment of him in regard to 9/11, that would have happened no matter who was president at the time. However, I would see that Al Gore, even given his limitations, would probably have gone into Afghanistan but not Iraq. Further, he would have more intelligently appointed Agency heads that were far more competent than what we got with Bush. This might sound like I have developed some kind of respect for the guy but then I am making a comparison that is akin to comparing a human to a chimpanzee.

Absolutely right on! Ditto, ditto, ditto!

"The Republicans are DESPERATE to blame a Democrat for this debacle in Iraq...any Democrat! Blame Bill Clinton, Blame 2006 Congressional Democrats, now blame Al Gore!
The bottom line is this tragic, unnecessary war is all George Bush & Dick Cheney's creation. This is Bush's War and no amount of "Alice and Wonderland" spin will change that fact!"

bobmoses: great quotes! I think you missed the rest of that very same speech, however, where Gore clearly states that Iraq does not present a case for unilateral military action.

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

In my opinion, if he believed those statements, he should have been for the war.

BTW: Do you think he was lying when he said those thing?

No matter how you slice it Gore is an arrogant jerk, that Bush is not totally one is in his favor

Nice examples of moronic and/or hateful liberal comments:

"Bush is not a nice person"

"Druggies on the supreme court!!!!!complements (sic) of Ronald Regan!"

"Rehnquist is now in hell"

"9/11 Inside Job"

"Gore in all seriousness would have PREPARED for ALL EVENTUALITY."

If these are the people that hate Bush, then I feel a whole lot better.

No matter how you slice it Bush is an arrogant jerk, that Gore is not totally one is in his favor

Al Gore would have invaded Iraq? The Republicans are DESPERATE to blame a Democrat for this debacle in Iraq...any Democrat! Blame Bill Clinton, Blame 2006 Congressional Democrats, now blame Al Gore!
The bottom line is this tragic, unnecessary war is all George Bush & Dick Cheney's creation. This is Bush's War and no amount of "Alice and Wonderland" spin will change that fact!

Mr. Schesel,
Contrary to the response by Andres Martinez to both your question and your conclusion the only thing "creepy" about this is the assumption that we could not have expected the President to initiate a response, ANY RESPONSE to the August 6th PDB handed to him by his National Security advisors. I would point out that the federal governments case against Zacharia M was that had he confessed to his knowledge of 911 that within hours the government could have implemented tighter security at the nations airports. If its so easy to do with a terrorists confession then can someone explain to me why it was unrealistic to trigger a preventive measure after the PDB? If we are going to reply on terrorists to come forward and confess as the only means in which we respond to or prevent attacks then I would suggest we are in deep trouble. It seems to me the Bush administration was quite capable of putting up their colored security lights easy enough. It escapes me as to why we could not expect the office of the President to have taken more precautions when handed the PDB. I am not suggesting that 911 would have NEVER happened only that a more proactive and intelligent LEADER would most likely have done SOMETHING And of course its partisan lunacy to even ask the question. And of course, when in doubt, bring up Bill Clinton and put some blame on him too.
The response on whether we would have been in Iraq with anyone other then Bush is obvious to the world, nation, and everyone except Andres Martinez.
I dont care if it was Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limabugh, Chevy Chase, Little Richard, my mother, your father, a drunk sailor on shore leave, a girl scout, or whoever, no one would have attacked Iraq over 911. And dont let the "creepy" suggestion that we dont know how anyone else would have responded to Iraq after 911 become anything more then what it is....flat out creepy. We do know and thats the whole point.

I agree with much of the commentary by the author but must take issue with Iraq. I have personally read much of the history to the build up to the war, I do not believe the assertion that Gore would have taken us into Iraq is supported by the facts.

Gore was one of the few people to publicly oppose the war from the beginning. The war in Iraq was a war that the Bush Administration wanted to set up a pro west democracy in the middle-east.

However I do agree, that it is impossible to know whether Gore may have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

Prez. Gore probably would have had a national security adviser who was actually qualified for the job, someone like Dick Clark, and not a hack like Condi Rice, whose sole qualification for the job was her ability to speak Russian, play the piano and keep bad news away from her friend. He probably would not have told his CIA director in August 2001, when he was warning him that the system was blinking red, "good, you've covered your *ss now," but might have actually done something to put the intelligence community on alert, like Clinton did before the milennium bomber was caught. The 9-11 Commish, which was full of radical left wing dirty hippies, concluded that the 9-11 attack was preventable, if you will recall. Gore probably wouldn't have had Cheney as his veep, or any secret cabals in the Veeps office manipulating the intelligence to build a case for war in Iraq.
And neo-con tools like the dozens employed in the Post would have had to get real jobs.
No difference otherwise.

When did the Post become a Fox newchannel?

Andy, if you are slightly competent (much less a professional) you would know that Richard Clarke served Repub and Dem admins, and has documented he couldn't get the zelots/idiots in the Bush Admin to deal with the reality of the imminent threat.

Any run of the mill political-hack could have listened to their own "lead terrorist specialist", and then taken serious steps to avert 9/11. Gore did not have to be a genius, he just had to not have a mission to ignore anyone that ever spoke to Clinton.

Andy, I hope you dont believe the crap you wrote, and you are just doing it for a pay check. Its too pathetic. No, elephants can't fly, and Bush was not operating in the best interests of our Country. He and Cheney hand picked this "intelligence" to justify a false threat. He believed that he needed to be a "war President" to stay in power. And it worked; he got re-elected. If you dont know that by now, you are slower than paint drying.

What is "partisan" is trying to cover up a corrupt, incompetent politician who lied about NATIONAL SECURITY, created no-bid scam/contracting for insiders, and then pretends he operates to protect Americans and "God's children."

What is "sad" is the Post would support such crap, and that they pay you for this.

bobmoses: great quotes! I think you missed the rest of that very same speech, however, where Gore clearly states that Iraq does not present a case for unilateral military action.

Bush is not a nice person in that he exploits every situation in a way that helps only people he has preselected to help.

He mostly helps extremely large corporations and international bankers like the Rothschilds by deregulating things like speculation in stocks and he helps big military operatives and spy agencies.

He is what I thought he was going to be, only even worse! He is a corporate fascist and a war criminal. Bush lied to go to war and has kept the real truth about 9-11 from being exposed by paying off the corporate media!

You don't wait 411 days if you want a real investigation of 9-11!

Chief Justice Rehnquist on drugs for years decided who the decider president was going to be in a 5 to 4 vote. Druggies on the supreme court!!!!! complements of Ronald Regan!

Rehnquist is now in hell because he was instrumental in giving Bush the presidency. Sandra Day O'Connor is n living hell herself. Gore has more a sense of duty and responsbility than Bush (borne out by their conduct from their young lives until their adulthood) so Gore would have paid more attention to the President's Daily Brief and Gore would not have dismissed the CIA Officer briefing him about "Bin Laden will strike in the US". Gore would have asked and asked how the CIA came up with that assessment. Having served in Vietnam, Gore would have not invaded Iraq willy-nilly like Bush was going on a nice safari. Lives were going to be involved, therefore, Gore in all seriousness would have PREPARED for ALL EVENTUALITY. It is in Bush's background that gave clues as to what kind of leader he was going to be. Bush is nothing but a stand-in for whoever the Republicans wanted to be president. 7-1/2 years saw the decline of the United States.

9/11 Inside Job

911 would have happened. Afghanistan? Assuming the Taliban didn't turn over OBL then Gore would have gone in to get him - and likely would have, at Tora Bora, rather than be distracted by a forthcoming Iraq invasion. After getting OBL, I would hope Gore would have had the sense to get out of Afghanistan rather than stay for a fruitless effort at nation building.
As for Iraq, Gore would have pressed for the inspectors to go back in, as Bush did only reluctantly and on the insistance of Tony Blair. But then he would have had the good sense to listen to them when they said there were no WMD.

"Not because Gore is better man, far from it, but because there would not of been a Republican Ted Kennedy calling Gore a liar, or a Reed declaring defeat, etc."

Don't forget the media, whose story in Iraq shifted from "Baghdad will be another Stalingrad" to "Americans are bogged down" to "Americans are hapless occupiers" to "Americans are flagrant abusers of human rights" to complete silence when the surge started to work.

The one nice thing about an Obama presidency would be having a media seeking to help our president instead of destroy him out of partisanship. The media will still be without ethics, but at least it might benefit us.

Hate to burst the bubble, but 9/11 would only MAY BE happen. Several reasons. First the National Security Agency would not been presented by Bush / Cheney and co. Therefore, a much higher possibility to avoid it with a Gore Administration, is very reasonable. Could be also, that the true instigators of 9/11 would have backed out and that was not Bin Laden. But to explain that, the space allowed her would be insufficient.
Second, Iraq? I do not think so. Iraq was solely a Bush / Cheney plan and consideration to cover up G.W.Bush's incompetence.
There is more to say but again, the space here is limited.
Either way, we wold not have lost over four thousand American Lives in Iraq not counting tens of thousands of wounded and would not have a $10 Trillion deficit.

Yes, we would have been attacked on 9/11 of a Gore Administration, and Gore might have responded, to Afgan and maybe even Iraq. Point is, he would have then lost all 50 states in his reelection bid, as the right would have utterly destroyed him and Bill and 12 years of dem policies that led to the attack.

I agree a Pres. Gore probably could not have prevent 9/11. But I totally disagree that he too would have INVADED Iraq even if he might have ordered bombing runs. One issue that was addressed is the deficit problem. He certainly would not have pushed through the tax cut (whether for the rich or not is another issue) when the surplus looked good. The conservative battle cry "it is your money" sounds hollow now because I don't hear them say "it is your debt" when it comes to raising taxes.

Al Qaeda was certainly itching to attack the US so who knows what a Gore administration could or would have prevented. It's a virtual certainty that Gore wouldn't have been on vacation for 6 of his first 9 months in office--so maybe the extra work time would have involved some focus on Al Qaeda. Gore never would have gone into Iraq--Al Qaeda hated Saddam and vice versa as Gore well knew (and stated) well before the war's inception.

"It took about five seconds on google to find out exactly how Gore felt about the idea of invading Iraq in the days leading up to our invasion."

Me too!

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

Absurd to conclude that following the 9/11 attack ANYONE else would have attacked Iraq. Why would Iraq be the target? They did not perpetrate the 9/11 attack.

Only a greedy, ignorant, non-reader like bush would do something so stupid and lie to everyone to put the war in motion.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance....a smart man said this...its time some action on it takes place.

OBAMA IN 2008

The world would be quite different with a President Gore, but only if he viewed 911 as an act of war and not a criminal manner as the Clinton's handled previous matters. If and only if, he turned to the military for an aggressive response, would the out come been different. Gore would of found a supportive opposition party, and his ability to achieve what Bush wanted to do, would of been much more effective our enemies would of seen a united nation out to get them and we would of prevailed a lot quicker under Gore than we have under Bush.
Not because Gore is better man, far from it, but because there would not of been a Republican Ted Kennedy calling Gore a liar, or a Reed declaring defeat, etc.

Hi Chris. Thanks for the heads up.

Conspricay theorists are still nuts :)

It took about five seconds on google to find out exactly how Gore felt about the idea of invading Iraq in the days leading up to our invasion.

Hey Mike. I don't know anything about the veracity of 9/11 mysteries (sounds like crazy person talk), but Cheney did command NORAD to stand down.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/455482/cheney_orders_norad_to_stand_down_as_flight_approaches_d_c/

Does this mean much of anything? Not really. I doubt any VP would want to be known as the guy who shot down a civilian aircraft, unless he knew it was absolutely necessary. But still, I guess he had something of a point...

Would 9/11 have occurred? Probably not because Bin Laden would have assessed Gore as a much more intelligent and dangerous opponent than Bush.

I very much doubt that a President Gore would have invaded Iraq in the absence of international support. And Afghanistan would have been a more cooperative effort as well. These are very fundamental differences in approach, and I believe that a less unilateral administration would have been much better for our Country in both the short and medium terms (though I suspect Gore would have been a one term President.) I agree that speculation regarding the likelihood of a Gore administration being able to prevent 9/11 are unjustified. Beyond that, I won't speculate.

"Baloney. Dick Cheney took control of NORAD, sent most of the jet off on anti-terrorist exercises in Canada and ordered the remaining jets to "stand down" when they detected the planes coming in. Never had a V.P. taken control of NORAD. Never had we had such consequences. I am still convinced "911 Mysteries" is true."

Hi Jack. Can you post a link for your "source".

I need a good laugh.

Baloney. Dick Cheney took control of NORAD, sent most of the jet off on anti-terrorist exercises in Canada and ordered the remaining jets to "stand down" when they detected the planes coming in. Never had a V.P. taken control of NORAD. Never had we had such consequences. I am still convinced "911 Mysteries" is true.

This article had me up to the Iraq analysis. Whether Gore could have stopped 911 is pure speculation, and not worth much discussion in my view. And Gore certainly would have gone into Afganistan after 911. But assuming Gore would have also gone into Iraq is pretty silly. And really, it's Iraq that has (1) caused Bush's approval by Americans to be so historically low (2) triggered massive spending and (3) caused the US to lose so much respect around the world.

"If you want to argue # of attacks in America then let's talk about all the years leading up to 9/11. How many attacks were there in America during the Clinton Presidency?"

And how many times did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor when Hoover was President? What is your point?

"I do think that Bush has made many of the changes necessary for security, such as on airlines, but to argue that we are any safe now, is just unfounded."

So he made needed changes for security but we are no safer? If we aren't safer, why were the changes necessary?

"In fact, many security experts say that we have done very little to enhance security, and the public's perception doesn't really factor into this discussion, especially since pre-9/11 I'd imagine that they felt much safer than they do now."

Many security experts also say the contrary? As we have all learned, their is an "expert" available to tell us that any partisan position is accurate.

Also, you don't have to imagine that Americans feel safer. They do:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Americans_fear_of_terror_attack_lowest_since_911/rssarticleshow/3191147.cms

"I don't know if we could have prevented 9/11, but I do know that Bush ignored warnings and reports (Clinton also could have bagged Bin Laden back in the day and didn't act)."

I don't know if they "ignored" it any more than Clinton "ignored" the threat of OBL. Executives are not prescient.

"But nobody has demonstrated that warantless wiretaps have done ANYTHING to increase security. Perhaps they have been slightly more effective than torturing prisoners, but I doubt it."

Well, don't you think it would be hard for the NSA to go around broadcasting the details of their covert successes? Let's be reasonable.

"Like with torture, the experts say that it is not a necessary or effective means of fighting terrorism."

I agree with that position, although the notion that we are running "around" torturing people is a liberal fantasy. We waterboarded three people. All of them were high level AQ operatives and considering the fear around the country at the time, it might have seemed more reasonable then. Much like FDR interring Japanese Americans. It was a wrong decision, but for some reason nobody seems to remember that. I think it is likely that waterboarding will be forgotten as well. At least that was performed on guilty people :)

If you just just wanted to denigrate the sender of the question, why did you pick it in the first place. Creepy, indeed.

Sorry Mike, I didn't mean to imply that I thought Gore necessarily could have prevented 9/11. I just don't think Bush could have done any better or that he's doing any better right now in making us safer.

If you want to argue # of attacks in America then let's talk about all the years leading up to 9/11. How many attacks were there in America during the Clinton Presidency? I do think that Bush has made many of the changes necessary for security, such as on airlines, but to argue that we are any safe now, is just unfounded. In fact, many security experts say that we have done very little to enhance security, and the public's perception doesn't really factor into this discussion, especially since pre-9/11 I'd imagine that they felt much safer than they do now.

I don't know if we could have prevented 9/11, but I do know that Bush ignored warnings and reports (Clinton also could have bagged Bin Laden back in the day and didn't act). But nobody has demonstrated that warantless wiretaps have done ANYTHING to increase security. Perhaps they have been slightly more effective than torturing prisoners, but I doubt it. Like with torture, the experts say that it is not a necessary or effective means of fighting terrorism.

"Mike, saying that the Bush policies have done much of anything to prevent terrorism can't be proven"

I agree that they can't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but there are measures that can give an idea (# of attacks in America, # of attacks worldwide, polls showing Americans feel safe, etc)

By the same token, it is hard to "prove" any complicated program. Can you prove that LBJ's welfare system is a net positive or negative? Of course not and it is kind of a silly argument.

"to argue that they would have prevented 9/11 is also just a foolish line to take."

I never made such an argument. Instead, I was pointing out that if it was possible to prevent 9/11, it would have required the same "violation" of civil liberties that Bush's critics decry. For example, they comitted no crime? How would you detain them to stop them?

"how would wiretapping have prevented 9/11? Were they making calls overseas and discussing their plans to attack us?"

Are you kidding? Read the 9/11 report. They were definately talking overseas a bunch. Were they chatting overtly about their intents? No, but it's doubtful they are under Bush either. That's why we have analysts. Although, I guess Gore would have gotten them to talk about their plans in the clear :)

The central premise of this article, that things would have been more or less the same, is sadly expected.

This is what we hear from Washington insiders every election, that they're all the same, so just stay home on election day...no policy differences to speak of, just differences in style and choice of pastor...etc.

Frankly it's pathetic.

Besides, where is the response to whether we'd actually be fighting TWO wars, not whether we'd be fighting NO wars. This is a pretty long response just to take down an irrelevant straw man.

Much said already, but here is what we can know.....

1. We will never know if Gore could have stopped an attack. Maybe, maybe not.

2. The Bush Administration could never have stopeed an attack. Why? Because (a) he and his staff dismissed the threat of Al Qaeda (b) ignored what intelligence was offered (c) placed their attention from Day 1 on re-tooling American foreign and military policy, not continuity of programs started by the previous administration that might have alerted them.

Andres Martinez clearly lacks the imagination to give serious thought to a counterfactual. That is forgivable for a journalist, since we want the facts, not creative and inventive intellect. But when you get the facts so horrendously wrong as has been pointed out by many comments, then you clearly picked the wrong occupation. Let me think, who excels at lacking intellect, imagination and getting facts wrong? A Fox news reader, perhaps. Keep up the good work, WP, I'll keep sending my subscription checks elsewhere.

CIA: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Bush: "Yeah, you've covered your ass now"

Gore would have reacted exactly the same, right?

Whether a Gore administration would have foiled 9/11, we'll never know. What information we have indicates it would have been more vigilant than the Bush administration.

If 9/11 had occurred during a Gore presidency, it seems very likely that Gore would have invaded Afghanistan. He publicly supported the actual invasion. My speculation is that the invasion would not have been so "on the cheap," as the Bush action. It seems out of character for Gore.

It is very unlikely that Gore would have gone to war with Iraq. There is an actual and in fact public record of Gore's remarks immediately before and after the Bush invasion. Gore was outspoken in his opposiiton. In fact, it was viewed as something of a comeback after the post-election seclusion. Thus, it seems fatuous to suppose that Gore would have invaded. Stumped's memory may begin with yesterday, but mine goes back further.

Furthermore, it's preposterous to presume that Lieberman, as VP, would have much influence on war/peace decisions. Gore is neither so emotionally needy as Bush, nor so easily gulled; Lieberman would not have had Cheney's influence.

Mike, saying that the Bush policies have done much of anything to prevent terrorism can't be proven, and to argue that they would have prevented 9/11 is also just a foolish line to take. For example, how would wiretapping have prevented 9/11? Were they making calls overseas and discussing their plans to attack us? Doubtful.

How about this as a topic:

How does someone as painfully and clownishly stupid as Andres Martinez get a prime position on WashingtonPost.com as a supposedly insightful blogger?

Easy -- be a Bush apologist. My guess is this topic was less meant to be taken seriously than just to get attention for himself, and, obviously, since we're all here, it worked.

No, Andy, Pres. Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, your own feverish, overheated fantasies to the contrary, notwithstanding. He would've known the difference between the country that harbored the serious threat (Afghanistan) and one that did not.

I love the liberal view that Gore would have stopped 9/11. What would Atta and crew be arrested for? How much warentless wiretapping would have been required?

The bottom line is that stopping 9/11 would have required the policies that liberals demonize Bush for today.

Of course Gore could not have prevented 9/11. And he would have invaded Afghanistan with more troops because he would not have had a bumbling incompetent as his Secretary of Defense. Caught Bin Laden? Maybe. But to suggest he would have invaded Iraq is ridiculous. Maybe airstrikes would have been inevitable agaisnt Iraq because certainly the right would have tried to cast him as "weak" for "allowing" 9/11 to happen in the first place. But the central premise of this article, that things would have been more or less the same, is mind-boggling. I think the author needs a vacation.

Um, it's actually not necessary to resort to counterfactual hypothesis to know what Gore would have done about Iraq. In a September 2002 speech he opposed rushing to war. He said "we [the United States] should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and who have thus far gotten away with it." Check your facts, Stumpy.

Gosh, ep, you really need to pull your head out of the sand...or from somewhere else, more likely. Like GWB, you just can't handle being wrong, wrong, wrong...

If Gore had been elected...he might have noticed the chief of foreign intelligence running with his hair on fire about an imminent attack on our soil...he might not have appointed a head of National Security who was dismissive of the possible threat because she had no experience in national security(Condi Rice)...and even if the attacks of 9/11 had gone forward successfully, he wouldn't have ruined our armed services and our economy to chase oil in Iraq and appease Daddy Bush's Gulf War mistakes, instead of rooting out Al-Quada in Afghanistan. DUH!

ZZim, you and ep can go play in your fantasy world. Have fun. But please, don't act like you are talking about the world the rest of us live in. McCain/Lieberman...hahahahahaha. I'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

I agree with everything in this post except the ludicrous assertion that a Gore Administration would have commenced beating the war drums against Iraq from the start and would have stampeded recklessly into a war of choice there. Stumped offers no justification whatsoever for his terse insistence that Gore would have gone to war in Iraq. What is that based on, besides the same old Iraq warmongering that the Post apparently feeds its entire staff like fluoride in water? A Gore Administration would not have offered a seventeen justifications in as many days for racing into Iraq and would not have treated the U.N. as contemptuously as the Bush Administration did. Nor would a Gore Administration have pressured the CIA to cook intelligence to favor the war. The one questionable thing, though, is what a President Gore would have done when, after 9/11, Vice President Lieberman experienced his complete emotional meltdown and became the raving warmonger, Arab-hating nutjob that we've all come to loathe.

Only the WP could choose such an ignorant fool to answer questions about politics and policy. Wait, maybe the Murdoch propaganda outlets as well.

Tony you doofus. The Clinton/Gore administration started the signing statement business. A good guess would be to assume a Gore/Leiberman administration would have continued it.

Speaking of which, don't forget that Senator Leiberman has been one of the biggest proponents of the war in Iraq.

And for you folks who have trouble adjusting your views based on events - the war in Iraq is a success. Please don't commit the same offense of stubbornness you are accusing President Bush of.

PS - McCain/Lieberman in 08!

Gore was plenty hawkish on Iraq during his days in the Senate, as well as during his tenure as VP. It's not to say that his votes in the late 80s would dictate what he would or would not have done in a role as President in 2001-on, but in the 2000 book titled 'Inventing Al Gore" one instance of his stance on Iraq:

On the Senate floor in 1991, Gore said, "I have struggled to confront this issue. [and] to strike a balance. The risks of war are horrendous. The real costs of war are also horrendous. But what are the costs and risks if the alternative policy does not work? I think they are larger, greater, more costly." Gore joined 9 other Democrats who broke ranks on a 52-47 vote to authorize the use of force in the Persian Gulf.

Anybody who actually thinks that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq does not deserve a prominent forum at Washingtonpost.com. Seriously. You are clearly rather uninformed about the run-up to war and should do more reading before speculating about which you know so little. I'd start with Chaim Kaufmann's Foreign Affairs article, "Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: the Selling of the Iraq War." And, no, I'm not a raging partisan, just an educated Political Science professor.

Stumpy--

Are you nuts?

I agree that it is foolish to assume an entirely different history with a President Gore, but you fail to see a few things that are pretty glaring to me:

--Bush & Co. screwed the pooch on the August 2001 Intelligence in regards to Bin Laden. How? Well, let's try the fact that Bush had different staffers than Gore would have. Why, based on the "heckuva job, Brownie" calculator in my back pocket, many of the Bush staffers were ideologues, neo-cons and good old-fashioned cronies. Would Gore have loaded up his staff with as many losers? I'm thinking 60/40, 70/30 nosiree.

--It's pretty common knowledge that The Decider has a really hard time accepting it when facts change on the ground. You're right one point: a Gore Admin would certainly prosecute the war in Afghanistan much differently and engaged the Iraq situation differently.

--So why is it hard to see that President Gore would have been better? Katrina. Global Warming. Energy policy. Supreme Court appointees. Just a few areas that would have had a better CHANCE of better outcomes.

--And let's not forget those effin signing statements. Talk about a blotch on your record. They border on the criminal. Yes, criminal. I can't wait for history to weigh in on the last Bush in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

I mostly agree with you with one very notable exception. I do not think that Gore would have invaded Iraq. There are many reasons why I do not think he would have invaded Iraq but I will mention one that many will not make. Gore would not have invade Iraq because I would not have invaded Iraq if I had been president. Since I regard Gore with at least as much intellectual acuity as I possess I think that he too would have made the correct decision.

Incidentally, I am not the only American who knew on March 14, 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was not only a mistake but would end in the quagmire it now is. There were at least two hundred thousand at a march I attended at that time. So that now makes at least 200,001 Americans who would not have invaded Iraq. I know we are all more intelligent that Bush but Gore? I think not.

I'm sorry Andres, but I really don't believe your line. It is often used, but really... I assume you also live in the Wash DC area, and assume you know how carefully protected the airspace is over DC. I just can't believe that an airplane barreling toward the pentagon would be allowed to hit it...much less while the US is known to be under attack. Cheney had already been whisked away to his bunker, so we know they were preparing for some eventuality... so how could they allow the Pentagon to be attacked? In an everyday situation, it is unthinkable-- impossible, in an emergency situation, with all the safeties and back-ups, its not gross negligence, it is intentional.

Even if the FAA, and the military had treated it as a business-as-usual runaway airliner, they would have dealt with it. I know that even if a Gore administration had been confronted with this situation, and even caught unawares, they would have been more than able to scramble some jets to prevent all the attacks.

To say otherwise, is to say that the FAA, and the military have, and continues to be exceedingly neglectful in their ability to protect the US. And that just isn't so.

This was the dumbest column I have read in a long time. Martinez - you are a fool and a charlatan. You could not possibly believe the crap you are shovelling here. Give us a break.

Gore never would have gone to war with Iraq. Bush was determined to do this since his father failed to go into Bagdad. Gore had no chip on his shoulder re: Iraq. We also would not have had Guantanamo and the subversion of the constitution under Gore. Also we would not have the huge deficits and the mismanagement of disasters like Katrina. In a word, competence matters.

Also, ep? Yellowcake? Really? Quit fooling yourself. Also, you're wrong. Recounts found that Gore won Florida, just as Kerry won Ohio, if Bush's lapdog the secretary of state over there hadn't systematically broken the law (proven) to bar voters.

Saddam Hussein was doing nothing to threaten us before the Iraq War. He was doing exactly what he had been doing since the Gulf War, sitting in a palace, exploiting his people. To argue that there was any threat is just repeating the same lies we heard from the Bush Administration. Anybody with half a brain saw through that at the time, and anybody that supported the war then has lost their credibility.

Maybe the Repugnicans are right about our courts. After all, it was ACTIVIST JUDGES who denied Al Gore the Presidency...and gave us dum-dum and his "war for oil" instead of letting all our votes count.

Let's not forget the Gore Commission, which strongly recommended the strengthening of airplane cockpit doors to repel attacks, which the airlines refused to implement because of the cost. Also, Gore wouldn't have ignored and sneered at all the warnings about Bin Laden; he wasn't in bed with the Bin Laden family as Bush is.

Unfortunately, you don't seem to know very much about the circumstances when President Bush went to war against Iraq, Mr. Martinez. Saddam Hussein wasn't acting like a looming threat, the Bush admin painted him as one in order to justify its decision to go to war, and to persuade people to support the war in question.

Here's a tip: when you're not certain of an answer, don't peek on what Fred Hiatt's written.

Not mentioned was "If Gore had been elected, we would now be 4-8 more years advanced in fighting global warming" instead of having wasted that invaluable time. How much more time are we going to waste? The next president had better act in a fashion as serious as Australia's Kevin Rudd has managed to do, or the US is going to go down and drag the rest of the planet with us.

Some of us are so horribly "partisan" for a reason. It's true that Gore wouldn't have done these horrible things, even if "reasonable" "centrist" "respectable" Washington establishment people don't want us to admit it.

Some Republicans may be well-intentioned but as a party they are living in a self-serving fantasyland that has led to disaster after disaster. I hope Americans won't fall for their delusions and the media's bias towards them yet another election.

Gore is not a neocon. Neocons wanted Iraq, not normal, rational people.

Great article Andres! I agree with you whole-heartedy. Alternative history speculation can be enlightening if we go into it without all the emotional baggage.

It would have been interesting if the world could have been split so we could see how a Gore Presidency might have handled the same events. My guess - like yours - is "pretty much the same". Notice how now that Obama is facing the real possibility of being President he is swiftly moving in line with President Bush on Iraq policy.

What is of greater interest to me is how Gore would have handled the inevitable period of turmoil after the fall of Saddam. Bush handled it by bulling his way through regardless of what people thought. He succeeded because he had the authority to do it and it was the right thing to do. Gore might have spent more time building consensus to keep the population supportive of the war. But I don't think he would have given up and gone home.

Again, I think Bush and Gore Presidencies would have differed mainly on style rather than substance.

PS - I bet the Republicans would have behaved just as badly as the Democrats have in opposing the war at every turn.

First, the election of 2000 was incorrectly decided by the Supreme Court as the full recount performed after the decision shows that Gore did indeed have the most votes. See here:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html

Secondly, the Clinton administration received intelligence about the millenium attacks and ordered the FBI on high alert. Those attacks were thgen foiled as a result. It is not a stretch to believe that Gore would have reacted similarly to the news that Bin Laden was plaaning an attack with planes. Thus, there is a good possibility that Gore would have stopped the 9/11 attacks.

Furthermore, the scheme was not implausible prior to 9/11. The Clinton administration had already stopped one such scheme and it was even the subject of a Tom Clancy novel prior to 9/11!!!!

Third, even if 9/11 happened, there is no way Gore invades Iraq. Gore very publically opposed the war in 2002. His speech was mocked in virtually all of the newspapers as someone out of touch. Thus, to claim he would have invaded Iraq is pure lunacy.

Furthermore, based on his 2002 speech, one can make the legitimate argument that a PResident Gore would have focused all of his military efforts on getting Bin Laden had 9/11 actually occurred. This is especially true since the Clinton administration already had war plans drawn to go after Bin Laden shortly before leaving office after determining that AQ was behind the Cole attack.

So, based on actual facts, Gordon's theory is certainly within reason. Mr. Martinez, you need to do some research before answering these questions.

This response collapses on two simple, factual points: 1. When Bush came in he shut down the working group dealing with terrorism that met on a daily basis. There were many warnings, now well documented, many from foreign intelligence services, that something was about to happen. The gross negligence of the Bush White House is a critical part of the 9/11 atrocity. Second, are we really to believe that Gore would have invaded Iraq when the UN inspection process was still underway, and not finding anything? Saddam was being picked clean. That was a considerable victory, one which was thrown away by an impetuous desire for war.

But the large issue I find disturbing here, is this article represents another breakdown in basic empiricism we increasingly see inside our Nation's capitol. These are not facts subject to dispute. There is something delusional about trying to dismiss basic facts as an exercise in irrational partisanship. If you look at the record of this Congress, and the previous ones. it is clear that if there has been an excess of partisanship, it has come from the Republican Party alone.

I am curious to know what you mean by asking 'would Sadam Husein have blinked?' By this do you mean revealing the WMD he didn't have? By allowing in weapons inspectors? (Oops - he did that, didn't he?) Or do you mean getting on board with U.S. hegemony and being 'our' dictator like he was supposed to be?

This is a classic debate: do the circumstances make the man or the man the circumstances.

The basic confrontations between the US and Al-Q and the US and Iraq seem to me beyond the scope of one administration's influence. The specifics of how that confrontation played out however, had quite a bit to do with the decision-makers involved. One thing for sure, a different secretary of defense would have led to a different military approach to Afghanistan and Iraq. The Clinton-era plans for a phased invasion of Iraq, as revealed in Cobra II, might be a good indicator of what a Gore Administration's invasion would have looked like.

ep:

No, the media recounts did not indicate that Bush won Florida. They indicated that had the limited recounts which were being conducted been completed, Bush would have come out on top. But every count which looked at all the uncounted votes in the state (including legible overvotes as well as undervotes) showed Gore winning.

Not to mention the fact that an honest vote count would not have included many questionable absentee ballots that canvassing boards accepted under pressure. These disproportionately benefited Bush, so Gore's margin would have increased further.

Tom, scorpionbowl, FreeDom, and others have it right, Stumped has it wrong. Gore wouldn't have dropped the country's guard against al Qaeda, wouldn't have invaded Iraq. 9/11 may or may not have happened, but aQ would have had a tougher time executing it and the US response would have been vastly different.

I know what must have happened to Martinez...he went on summer vacation, and Krauthammer is actually sitting in his chair this week.

"At the risk of indulging in some alternative-history speculating of my own, I'd suggest that Operation Desert Fox could easily have developed into a full-scale war if Washington hadn't been preoccupied by the conflict in the Balkans."

By this logic, the war in Afghanistan should have "distracted" us from starting another in Iraq.

9/11 and Afghanistan would probably still have happened with Gore, though I find it hard to believe that Gore would have surrounded himself with hawks, who in turn would fudged/over-state WMD intelligence to start a war against Saddam.

This answer is silly. There's a straightforward way to answer a question such as this (to the extent that it can be answered). Here it is: examine the behavior of the Bush administration relative to 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan and ask if it would be reasonable to believe a Gore administration would have acted differently (and whether this would have had an effect on reality). It's an entirely sensible question (not one motivated by irrational partisanship or fatalism denial--and even if it were motivated by those things, why attack the questioner's motivations?). Maybe the answer is 9/11 would have happened anyway, but "stuff happens" isn't the reason it did happen anymore than "Bin Laden hates Bush" would be.

First of all, Gore's policy towards the Middle East would have been different than Bush's. Remember, Bush let Ariel Sharon run all over the Palestinians unchecked. This provoked the Arab extremists and laid fertile ground for the 9/11 attack.

In the alternative, maybe Bin Laden would have attacked us no matter who was President in 2001 and what the policy was at that time. Either way, Gore would have gone after Bin Laden and completed that task before going after Saddam on unrelated issues. Also, would Gore and his Administration have lied to the American people and the world as Bush and his people did? I think not.

Good lord, you people need to put down your crosses. They are so heavy, aren't you tired of bearing them after so long?

The fact that people can still claim that the 2000 election was "stolen" is just an abject failure to face reality. There were plenty of recounts conducted by the media post-Bush v. Gore and they all indicated that Bush won the state. You can make the popular vote argument all you want, but that's not how we elect a President.

George Bush won the election. Get over it.

Secondly, it's funny how all this revisionism focuses on all of the things Al Gore of course would have done "better."

BS is the polite abbreviation I am looking for. You have no idea. Perhaps he would not have gone into Iraq. OK, fair enough. Then maybe we can look at who might be in possession of dangerous weapons generated from 550 tons of yellowcake uranium.

Would Al Gore have done as good a job restructuring our intelligence operations as George Bush has? Most certainly not, and we'd likely have had MORE attacks post-9/11 than the zero that we have faced. Al Qaeda would likley be stronger for the Gore administration's reluctance to take necessary steps to disrupt, kill and capture them...instead of the sorry state that AQ is in today.

Oh, and let's not forget, our economy was doing pretty well (and fuel prices weren't that high) until Democrats took over Congress. Al Gore likely would have brought this economy to a screeching halt with his radical environmental agenda in his first term, meaning we almost certainly wouldn't have had a second term of ManBearPig.

Instead of looking back on 8 years of Gore had he won the 2000 election (which I will remind you again -- he did NOT), it's more likely that today we'd be reflecting on the end of the first term of a McCain or Gingrich presidency, and wondering who could possibly challenge their incumbency...certainly not an empty suit from Illinois with no experience.

Please stick to Star Wars or Lord of the Rings if you want to engage in this fantasy life. You don't do such a good job of it when it comes to the real world.

I read somewhere (I think it was in Ron Susskind's book about Paul O'Neill) that GWBush required ALL briefings to be boiled down to the merest bullet points, including the President's Daily Briefing from the CIA; also, it was written that he (GWB) did not ask questions.

Hmmm. Gore, Clinton, George HW Bush could have taken in and understood complete briefing; and would have asked questions.

While it's true that we can never know if the 9/11 attacks might have been foiled had there been a president and administration at the time that gave credence to warnings about Al Quaeda; it is quite within reason to suppose that a President Al Gore would not have told the CIA briefer -- "Okay, you've covered your ass." Nor would he have allowed 8 months of his term to pass without requiring principals meetings on Al Quaeda (as had been recommended by Richard Clarke and other Clinton "leftovers" whose entire portfolio centered on international terrorist threats).

Martinez' commentary only makes sense in a total factual vacuum. Some of us remember that the Bush Administration utterly failed to give any credit whatsoever to the Clinton Administration's warnings that international terrorism would require their immediate and full attention. If you ignore the arrogance of the Bushies who petulantly disregarded everything the Clintonites warned them about, then I guess the Martinez commentary makes sense to you.

You are all idiots for wasting time on revisionist and hypothetical history. Gordons theroy holds no more weight than Stumped, neither can be tested or proven. Ever.

Oh and for the record there are plenty of Neo-Cons in the democratic party who could have made anything happen, one even was Gore's VP.

One thing's for sure, Gore is too smart to have invaded Iraq.

During the Clinton administration, the neocons, a/k/a "the crazies," were going around Washington trying to drum up support for invading Iraq. Clinton didn't fall for it because he had too much sense, and Gore wouldn't fall for it either.

But Bush is a half-retarded narcissist who was easily manipulated by the neocons into invading Iraq.

The 9/11 question is less clear, but we know there is a difference between the Clinton approach to terrorism (do something about it) and the Bush approach (ignore it, until 9/11). The CIA tried desperately to get Bush's attention about an imminent attack. Gore would not have ignored the "flashing red lights" and may have stopped the attack. Not a sure thing, but clearly we would have been much better off if the Supreme Court had not thrown the election to Bush.

Martinez suffers either from irrationally exuberant partisanship or irrationally exuberant jingoism. The idea that any other administration than Bush-Cheney would have made the totally false connection between 9/11 and Iraq or perpetrated the Big Lie that Iraq was a threat to the US is absolutely absurd.

His answer to what was in part (9/11) a dumb question was in part (Iraq) even dumber.

Gordon overstates, but YES, Gore may very well have stopped 9/11. Why? Because there was a clear intelligence estimate delivered on 8/6/01 indicating Bin Laden's plan, and Gore would have actually read and heeded it.

The Clinton/Gore Administration advocated and got a law from Congress that made it official US Policy to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The Clinton/Gore Administration did Operation Desert Fox.

The Gore/Liebermann campaigned front and center, and were enthusiastically endorsed by the Israel lobby as a result, with a promise to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

So either Gore would have overthrown Saddam Hussein, or he is a liar.

Gore would not have gone into Iraq.

He would not have sent troops into Afganistan, either.

We would still have Saddam and the Taliban, with sanctions on both. Whether that's better or worse than the status quo is another question.

I tend to believe 9/11 was sucessfull because of Buah Administration incompetence Aarrogant ideologues; they were so busy inspecting the ship of state and retooling for their ideology to look for iceberg of al qaeda. I also tend to think if President Gore could not prevent 9/11 or simliar attack, he would have completed job in Afghanistan rather than going on to Iraq Intervention. Saddam Hussein might still be in charge. The presence of Joe Lieberman however could have convinced Gore that overthrowing Saddam was next logical step. We will never know because of coup of Supreme Court authoritarian wing installed Bush to do the damage he has done to this country.

Dear Mr. Martinez,

I hope you read the previous comments. They have a lot more contact with reality than your unfounded musings.

Good response to a stupid letter.

I doubt the US would have attacked Iraq, because that attack was pushed so heavily by neo-cons, however.

Successful attacks like 9/11 rely on many small things going right for the perpetrators. Even a miniscule change, like the government alerting airport screeners of the possibility of such an event, might have caused enough disruption to prevent or lessen the attack. If Prez Gore had seen the evidence about an impending attack, I would like to think that he would not have ignored it, unlike the Iraq-besotted idiots who are still running our country into ruination.

Another WaPo troll piece. How controversial!

I know one thing....a Prez Gore would have at least had the cajones to go to the American public and tell them that they would have to pony up some dinero to pay for it all. And I doubt that the neoconservative fantasy of establishing a democracy in a slightly less than medieval country that wouldn't know John Adams from the Adams Family would have been on the table. Otherwise, I'm sure Gore woulda handled it just like Fearless Leader...cough, cough, chokes on breakfast sandwich.....

Al Gore is a tool. I am no fan of Dubya, but why you all think Gore somehow would have prevented this are dreaming.

America needs oil and Iraq has the largest amount after Saudi Arabia. Exxon (American), BP (British), Shell(Dutch) and Chevron and Total(French) all started drilling in Iraq last week. All the same nations since Iraq nationalized their oil just after WWII are back drilling. America colonized a whole nation. now that is a modern day achievement. Oil prices are high because we have to pay for the occupation.

America needs oil and Iraq has the largest amount after Saudi Arabia. Exxon (American), BP (British), Shell(Dutch) and Chevron and Total(French) all started drilling in Iraq last week. All the same nations since Iraq nationalized their oil just after WWII are back drilling. America colonized a whole nation. now that is a modern day achievement. Oil prices are high because we have to pay for the occupation.

I sincerely hope that Mr. Martinez reads the excellent rebuttals by freeDom and other readers to his unfounded conclusion that Gore would have led us into the mess that is the Iraq "war".

Mr. Martinez is on much firmer ground when he argues that 9/11 might well have happened under a Gore presidency. If so, one thing is certain--right wingers would have heaped all blame on Gore and Clinton.

I don't know if 9/11 would have happened but something would have. Each president has had conflict with the Middle East.

Nixon funded Golda Meyers' military airforce so the Isreali's could fight their neighbors. Nixon had the 6 day war between Isreal and Egypt.

Ford had problems throughout the world that he tried to fix.

Carter had the overthrow of Shah of Iran with Khomeni and the hostage crisis and gas shortage. TWA flight blew up between Rome and Athens.

Reagan had the Iran Contra scandal which was a covert war with Iran. He also funded the Moshajadin's war with the Taliban in Afghanistan so Russia would fall. He ended the hostage crisis.

Bush Sr. had the First Persian Gulf Kuwait war. Kuwait was siphoning off Saddam Hussein Iraq's oil reserves. Pan Am blew up over Lockabee Ireland.

Clinton had the Cole bombing, the first Twin Tower bombing in 1993 injuring dozens. He also had war in Bosnia and the "ethnic cleansing".

I do not trust that Obama is ready for the role of president because he is not experienced enough. He owes to many people favors. McCain will probably win in November because of his military background.

With popular-vote-winner Al Gore as president in 2000, it is impossible to say whether the 9-11 attack would have happened. Obviously, the attack was not against Bush; in fact, the outgoing Clinton-Gore team tried to warn the incoming Bush administration about intelligence information concerning a possible terrorist attack, but their warnings were basically dismissed and ignored. Even so, there is no assurance that President Gore would have been able to prevent the attack.

As for whether we would now be in Iraq, I would say no. "Stumped" is usually pretty smart, but here he is engaging in revisionist history in referring to the degree to which the 9-11 attack was in the public consciousness at the time we invaded Iraq. But that phony link was there exactly because the Bush administration promoted it ceaselessly, and their mendacity in doing so is evident from the very fact that they never specifically said, "Saddam Hussein was responsible for or involved in the attack." Instead, they very deliberately hinted at such a link in order to raise public support for an invasion that the Bushies had been planning from Day 1. This is exactly why polls at the time showed something like 2/3 of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was implicated in the attacks--and far from saying anything that would counter that false notion, the Bushies just continued to hint that it was true. But lots of ordinary Americans who supported the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan knew that the Iraq invasion was an entirely different story, so "Stumped" is being less than honest in portraying the mood of the nation at that time. Since it was the Bushies who deliberately fostered a lie to justify the war, I think it is safe to speculate that Al Gore as president would not have led the nation into this disaster.

The Clinton-Gore administration was focused on Al Qaeda and terrorism; the Bush Cheney administration was focused from even before they took office on Star Wars and invading Iraq. You have to be mad to think they would have responded the same way to intelligence warning of an attack from Al Qaeda.

Are you seriously suggesting that President Gore would have completely ignored the pre-9/11 warnings? Bush was on vacation and stayed there when Rice gave him the PDB on bin Laden's threatened attacks.

You need to go watch the brave speech Al Gore gave before the invasion of Iraq (or at least read it). He gives a solid evaluation of just what an enormous mistake it would be - his was the only major voice that came even close to predicting this disaster.

Dick Cheney and others in PNAC wrote to the Clinton administration proposing an invasion of Iraq back in the '90s - they always wanted to do this. The Clinton administration of course refused. Like Bush's father, he regarded these people as "the Crazies". Because they are.

"...of course it would have been easy -- on the basis of those vague CIA warnings..."
Why do you assume that the CIA warnings were vague, and that there was no other intelligence to work with. The only thing you know about the infamous PDB is its TITLE.
There's not enough time to answer all your specious reasoning and ignorant, arrogant assertions. This article is stupid.

Martinez said "Would Saddam have blinked?"

This is just stupid. How can someone give up WMD that they do not possess? The best spin you can put on Iraq is that the US staged an unprovoked attack and invaded a country due to false intelligence. At the time more than half the country thought Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. Bush certainly knew that this wasn't very like true, but the American people wouldn't have supported the war without this "knowledge". Every soldier went to war thinking they were fighting for this untruth, and many felt greatly betrayed when they found out they had been misled.

You may have convinced yourself with your shallow reasoning that Gore would have done something that no President but Bush would have done. Good luck convincing anybody else.

On the WWW, who said what when is available to anyone with a computer and a phone. Bet you have access to Lexus/Nexus and broadband.
Al Gore was speaking out against the Iraqi adventure before it was launched.

You don't have to be a guru, but I expect you to commit journalism on a fact based basis.

As Martinez says, Afghanistan was a done deal once the Taliban refused to betray their allies, but the invasion of Iraq was a stupid, counterproductive disaster planed and executed by Neocons given over to magical thinking.

I seriously doubt the credibility of anyone who claims Gore would have invaded Iraq. There was no connection to terrorism there, no real justification, and Gore would not have engaged in the lies and propaganda that the Bushies did to get us into that disaster.

Andres Martinez, you appear to be stuck in the party line here.

You might want to go back and read the 9/11 Commission Report before you speak definitively about what a more vigilant Administration could and could not have done.

There were many chances to foil the 9/11 plot.

Tenet and Richard Clarke both had their "hair on fire" that summer of 2001; no one listened to them.

The Bush Administration had decided to do away with all things Clinton -- including the war Clinton was already fighting against bin Laden.

It's actually *your* struggle against perceived partisanship that's coloring your response to the letter.

Gore would not have invaded Iraq. To believe he would have done so ignores reality and history.

We know that the Bush Administration was planning the invasion of Iraq before 9/11 -- from their very first cabinet meeting, according to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

In fact, the necoonservatives at the Project for a New American Century had been agitating for regime change in Iraq all through the Clinton Years; it was only as Bush's foreign policy team that they were able to execute their plan; they would not have been in a Gore Administration.

We know, from Scott McClellan, that the Invasion of Iraq had as much to do with Bush's desire to surpass his father's single term in office.

It's also pretty clear that there was a semblance of Texan vendetta here. Saddam, after all "tried to kill my daddy," said Bush. Laura, too.

And we know from history that it was timed to help the Republicans win the 2002 midterms. Hence the big hurry. That's according to Republican Dick Armey.

Stumped, hit the books.

Your smug response here is pretending to be something it's not: sensible and well-reasoned in the face of partisan nonsense.

In fact, you have mistaken the GOP's opposition to the facts (for every fact, there is an equal and opposite Republican version) for true balanced understanding.

http://scorpionbowl.blogspot.com

If you strip away all the stories told by the Bushies over the years, and look at what they DID when the came to office you get this:
1) They stopped talking to most of those who did not like the US.
2) They dropped the country's guard.
3) They whistled and waited.
And sure enough, they got exactly what they wanted, maybe even more than they could have hoped for. They suckered somebody into hitting us. Why? To replace the 'Commies'. To give the neocons an evil enemy that they could use to their own evil ends.
People think 911 was bad luck, bad Karma, bad intel, bad guys. It was none of those, it was good planning, manufactured by some of the smartest bad guys on the planet.
Would Gore have had the same plan. Of course not.

The war against Iraq was propagated in an atmosphere of fear, political fear, not of genuine terrorism. Why, well we could guess, but it is still a guess. I never for a second supposed that a war in Iraq was needed, right or effectual. Gore would not have started it. To suggest he would have is idiotic, sorry, but you need to be called out. Why the Bush administration was dead set on attacking Iraq, perhaps you should ask Chalabi and Kristol, and Cheney, and several others--but I cannot tell you.

Durring the VP debates before the first term, I remember Cheney stating that they wanted to "review" the Iraq policy, which I thought meant we might move away from the policy of bombing them for yet another decade--all when we suffer tyrants around the rest of the world, and aggression--I thought good, it doesn't makes sense to keep on bombing them without end everytime things get irritating. When now I think we know very well what Cheney meant, and he had the opportunity to channel the hate and fear of the American people against a defined enemy--for oil?

All said and done though, I don't call it the war on terror, but the war on the American taxpayer. How ineffectively have the fortunes of whole lives been flushed down the toilet? Billions or trillions of dollars? Soldiers and civilians? And you say that the Iraq war was basically inevitable. Bush, Gore--it's all the same. NONESENSE, and shame on you.

Gore would have been worlds apart. While he could not have stopped 9/11 he would have reacted very differently. thus all the world would have been united in the hunt or Al Queda starting with Osama Bin Laden. We know this from the support for hunt in Afghanistan. Iraq would still be under Saddam Hussein or another Arab regime. (if Saddam really did pursue WMD). Iran would have less influence as a result. Maybe Israel would be at peace with moderate Palestine. Also the US would have signed the Kyoto Treaty. Thus petrol would be cheaper now, as less demand would be in the market.

Actually, I believe that 9/11 would not have happened if the Supreme Court had not elected Bush. Osama Bin Laden is evil, but he is not stupid. He knew exactly who his enemy was and could predict the outcome. Yes, he was selling the Taliban out, but they had outlived their usefulness to him. In exchange, he was getting the Americans to squander their reputation and fortune and providing him with the best possible recruiting campaign. The close relationship of the Bush and Bin Laden families is well-documented, as is the Cheney et al. fixation on Bin Laden's old enemy Saddam Hussein. With Gore in the Oval Office, the focus would have been on marshalling world opinion and focusing not on kicking dogs in Afghanistan or going after oil in Iraq, but instead on a worldwide focus on going after Al Qaeda. And the chances of that working were too high to take the risk.

Al Qaeda will surely have hated the US just as much if Gore were president. However. Incompetencies such as not getting to intelligence memos pre-9/11 may not have happened under a Gore administration.

Moreover, Stumped's article itself shows "irrationally exuberant partisanship" and "creepiness" if it is to imply that Gore would have jumped into war with Iraq in the same way as Bush did. Wasn't it Condoleezza Rice who said in 2000 that Saddam posed no realistic threat because of it's lack of powerful resources? There was information to point to the fact that Iraq wasn't as much of a theat as everyone kept saying in December 2001. And don't forget the Bush Administration's probable alternative motives for invading. After 9/11, the one who had attacked the US was Osama bin Laden. The one who spoke in an unfriendly/slightly threatening tone was Saddam. Now who is hanged and who is still hiding in a cave?

There is a difference between playing partisan politics and noting facts, and being adamantly in the middle of left and right is sometimes simply irresponsible.

Gore stop 9-11? Probably not. But we know Bush didn't and changing admins so dramatically couldn't have helped. But Iraq is totally different. No way Gore misreads the intelligence or loses focus on AQ in Afghanistan. The biggest challenge with Gore would have been Congress. Congress rolled over for Bush, its unlikely the Repubs would have done anything other than blame Clinton and Gore. And, FWIW, we'd be a lot further down the path towards energy independence

Martinez obviously knows nothing about Gore or politics. A few points to consider:

1. As VP, Gore knew about Al Qaeda and served as VP when the administration foiled the New Years Eve 2000 LAX attacks. The letter never suggests Al Qaeda would not have tried to attack 9-11, but it is possible to believe Gore would have given it more attention than Bush did in the early days of his presidency. As Richard Clarke notes in his memoirs, the Clinton administration proposed a more aggressive war against AQ, which Bush never picked up. Moreover, the Clinton-Gore administration's foreign policy recognized the dangers of non-state actors and transnational threats, whereas the Bush team came in thinking states, such as China and Iraq, were the real danger.

2. The Clinton policy toward Iraq was containment. Desert Fox was a limited strike, not a prelude to war. Nothing after it suggested containment was totally unworkable, even if other Security Council members were less enthusiastic about it. While we don't know what a post-9-11 Gore Iraq policy would have been, there is no reason to think it would have differed so sharply from Clinton's.

3. Gore prominently and vocally opposed the Iraq War BEFORE we invaded. Stumped conveniently overlooks this, which I think constitutes journalistic negligence. While it is impossible to know if Gore would have reacted the same if he had been sitting in the Oval Office at the time, the fact is unlike Hillary Clinton, when he registered his public position on the war he was against it.

4. Gore had vastly more foreign policy experience than Bush did (or has). He comes from a different political party and has very different positions from Bush on a lot of issues. Therefore, it seems insane to believe that he would have made the same major decision Bush did on Al Qaeda or Iraq had he been president.

5. I think everybody agrees Gore would never have authorized torture as an official US policy, as Bush has. That has really alienated our allies around the world.

I don't know why Martinez felt the need to ignore the evidence to the contrary and write such a shoddy piece. We don't know what a Gore presidency would have been like, and it is possible (not likely) he would have been worse than Bush. But we do have some signs, such as Gore's foreign policy experience, public statements, and other signs to suggest he would have viewed the world differently and may have made different decisions.

One of the dumbest answers I've ever had the misfortune to read.

The letter writer never suggests that if Gore had not managed to prevent 9/11 (and I agree the chances are that he wouldn't have) he wouldn't have gone to war in Afghanistan. He asks whether Gore would have bogged us down in TWO wars, i.e. instead of ONE war. And I think the answer there is pretty obvious. In spite of the occasional flare-up of the Iraq situation under Clinton, the idea of actually INVADING Iraq and toppling Saddam appeared totally out of the blue, due to Bush's and the neocons' stubborn determination to try out their pet geopolitical theories, funnel money to Hallburton, and get their hands on Iraq's oil. 9/11 just provided a (not very convincing) excuse for a traumatized nation; in fact, as many people knew, and said, at the time, 9/11 was the world's best reason NOT to go into Iraq at that time.

Gore would have had no interest whatever in any of these goals, would have stayed focused on Afghanistan, and would in any case have listened to Scott Ritter and the UN inspectors.

That was actually a well thought out, sensible commentary.