What if - Al Gore had won the 2000 election?

[INRM]

I personally think something similar would have happened. After all Lieberman would have been his VP.

 

[stilicho]

As people have suggested above it is wildly unlikely that Gore would have taken the country to war in Iraq. I think, it is unlikely that any other main stream Republican would have taken the country to war in Iraq either.

This is oversimplistic. It borders on criticisms that Wilson or FDR forced the US into two unnecessary wars during their presidencies.

And for that matter, not only would a Gore administration have been much different than Bush's, so would that of any other mainstream Republican candidate.

Which candidate better represented your mythical mainstream Republican in 2000? McCain was the main contender. Was he more mainstream than Bush? Running on a populist platform that he quickly hid when it became apparent that he might actually win?

In the 2000 election the country spent hundreds of millions of dollars to select the president and the result was the selection of the most corrupt and inept candidate from either party.

I've never seen so many weasel words, dave. Who is 'the country'? Do you mean someone specifically paid to get the worst candidates? Who were the best candidates then and what did they operate their campaigns on? Manna from heaven?

Would any of the other mainstream presidential candidates have allowed the congressional cronyism, ear marks and wild fiscal irresponsibility to go unchecked? I doubt it.

And how is the Connecticut-born, Yale-educated, son of a former President not mainstream? In Wyoming? (Ooops. Wyoming is only mainstream if your the VP or a Miami Dolphins RB.)

Would any other president have allowed the massive real estate ponzi scheme that has savaged the nation to continue without any attempt to rein it in? I doubt it but I'm not sure. Clearly the Democrats and the Republicans played key roles in starting it and allowing it to go forward. I think a competent president may have been able to improve the situation but maybe not.

It wasn't the real estate market or the POTUS that caused the market collapse, dave, but the CDS's and people like you and me wanting guaranteed ten per cent plus returns on our retirement funds. Why are you so greedy?

Overall, the country suffered through the effects of a bumbling, narcissistic presidency that savaged the nation. In the end, my sense of it is that the worst effect of the Bush administration will be that the country has learned the wrong lessons out of all this. The country is full of people today declaring the Bush presidency proof of the idea that small government, free market ideas are disastrous. The Bush presidency only proved that ineptitude, corruption, jingoistic militarism and bury your head in the sand ideas about science are not good qualities in a president.

What about Gore strikes you as particularly unbumbling and non-narcissitic? Was it the way he kissed his wife? Those of us old enough remember his unbumbling and non-narcissistic wife impeding free speech through the vehicle of the PMRC. Yes. Very mainstream, that. In retrospect, that bitch Tipper positively adored being lionised by the media in her pursuit of purity and decency in the USA. How mainstream!

Nice touch on the science bit, though. Apparently Bush didn't do that well in the subject. You may have a cookie.

 

[gnome]

My Gore scenario (brought in from another forum):

Diverting from actual history as follows:

On December 8, 2000, the Florida Supreme Court orders a statewide hand recount of all ballots. In Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court lets that ruling stand instead of overturning it. Gore is found to be the winner and sworn in as president.

Two weeks into the National Conference on Energy Independence and Conservation, the attacks of September 11, 2001 occur. The war in Afghanistan occurs, and Gore begins reconstruction and nation-building there.

Gore's anti-terrorism program includes making use of the US's strong international support against terrorists since 9-11, and a package of new counterterrorism tools for the FBI and intelligence services dubbed the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). The ACLU has "serious concerns" about the potential for domestic civil rights abuse from the use of the ATA. In nations infested by terrorist cells, assets are frozen and joint operations to destroy training camps are launched all over the globe. Large financial and supply aid packages are approved for the most cooperative nations in the middle east. This becomes part of an ongoing operation referred to loosely as the War on Terror.

Gore speaks of his hope to use these stronger relationships to help resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict by cutting off Arab support for Palestinian terrorists and drive leaders to the negotiating table. He struggles, however, to receive solid pledges on this point.

Gore's Iraq policy continues in the same vein as Clinton's. In 2003 with the assistance of a whistleblower on the UN weapons inspection team the Oil for Food scandal erupts, embarrassing France and causing the US to tighten sanctions.

Debate continues in the UN on how to respond to Iraq's spotty cooperation with inspections. They are repeatedly found to be in violation of various UN resolutions, but the Security Council cannot agree on a military response. Gore opts to continue the strategy of containment and focus on the WoT, which he says addresses a greater threat to US security.

In 2004 Gore is re-elected in a tight race against a resurgent George W. Bush. Analysts speculate he was aided by the recent capture of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Accusations of voting irregularities in swing states are made by Republican leaders. Public perception is that the WoT is over or subsiding, but in fact major operations continue against Al-Qaeda cells and the Taliban's efforts to gain power back over regions in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile Gore's Iraq policy suffers harsh criticism among Congressional republicans and public opinion polls as the stalemate in the UN continues.

(ok, plenty of wishful thinking here, I know)

 

[Upchurch]

I couldn't disagree, more. After 9/11, a lot of us had a new appreciation for Bush and his cowboy way...He shed a few tears and let us know he was going to "hunt down" the culprits behind those atrocious events.. But then..he started going on about Invading Iraq.. and a lot of us were just left with jaws agape, in wonderment...... "Umm.. UBL is that way.. wtf??"

Agreed or, at least, that was my experience. I am currently a fully-formed "Bush hater", I suppose, but I wasn't always that way. I was fully behind the decision to go into Afghanistan and I still am. It was the right decision then and in hindsight. I was with him up until he started posturing on Iraq. That made no sense, almost a non sequitor.

I remember that even some of the conservative members on this board were hesitant at that move. They said things like, "he better damn well be right" about the WMDs. He wasn't. That was one of a long string of failures Bush where he would say one thing and reality would reflect something else.

Was Bush the worst President ever? Probably not, but his time in office should be remembered for series of bad decisions it was.

 

[Wildy]

Would the big challenges have been met in different ways? Where might we be today if w'd had 8 years of Gore instead of 8 years of Bush?

...

But humour me. What do you think?

Rolfe.

If it wasn't for Bender then we'd know by now.

 

[gdnp]

One day AlGore will be forced to show the Academy Award that sports his name, and after rummaging in his Sub Zero, he will produce a package of bologna. The only Oscar related item in his house.

Who is going to force him to do this? The people that provide the tape of his claim to have won an academy award? I think they live next to the people with the tape of him claiming to have invented the internet. Their address is 1 Cicero lane, Straw Man City, Planet X.

I'm just curious what you base this on. It seems to me there is a common belief by many people that Bush only went to Iraq to win "daddy's war" or other such explanations. But just saying it doesn't make it true.

And denying it doesn't make it false.

I'm curious to know why you suspect that other main stream Republican leaders would have not have taken the country to war in Iraq? What do you base this on? Why is there a belief that the Iraq was some completely personal cowboy moment for Bush?

I base it on the lack of a casus belli, the the intelligence of other Republican leaders to have recognized this. I base it on the lack of an exit strategy, and the intelligence of the other Republican leaders to have recognized this. It is ironic that you, in your defense of Bush, are denigrating the intelligence of other mainstream Republicans, whereas Bush's critics give them the benefit of the doubt.

Things may not have gone rather swimmingly over there in the long run. But I'll always remember the cries of dread before it started. 50k dead! Endless urban warfare! Unwinnable! Vietnam 2! But things actually went so much better than any of that. I'm not in any way convinced it wasn't a good idea to fight the terrorists there, as they came in from Syria, Iran, etc. And I'm not convinced we haven't put a huge hurt on terrorism worldwide.

I'm sure their were claims that there would be many more dead US troops, but then again, there were also claims that we would be greeted universally as heros. And I don't remember those who were celebrating the quick victory predicting thousands of troop losses from WMDs. As to fighting the terrorists in Iraq rather than elsewhere: That would, perhaps, be a legitimate point if we were only fighting preexisting terrorists. Instead, we were aiding in the recruitment of a whole new generation of terrorists in a way that OBL couldn't have planned better.

But I am convinced my previous two sentences will be ridiculed, and seen as the height of stupidity, and laughed at by some here. I'm certain of it. I just find it sad because I never actually see good reasoning behind such ridicule. Just a mentality that said person must be a fool if they don't agree. I'm sure you guys can do better than that. In your worlds, Bush sucks (worst president ever), Iraq was an unmitigated disaster, and everything conservative sucks, is evil, is fundamentalist, is stupid, and is dangerous. And you gang together in this mentality and ridicule those that disagree. But you are only marginalizing the opposition as much as possible, not actually taking on their ideals or beliefs at all. You just seek to ridicule them into non-existence?

I won't ridicule those previous sentences, but I will ridicule these. A combination of whining and straw man fallacies.

My belief is that after 9-11, everyone came together in a truly honest and touching way. But it wasn't long before Bush haters couldn't stomach it. Not out of a hatred of America, but a hatred of Bush and conservatives. Everyone "went along" with the idea of attack on Afghanistan. There was a handful of protesters, but not very much. But once it got to be Iraq, many on the left simply couldn't withhold their hatred of the man and just let loose on him. They played the patriotic act long enough. They simply couldn't stomach it anymore. And he absolutely could not be allowed to have any kind of victories. Anywhere. Ever.

Here, you could not be more wrong. The country came behind Bush when he invaded Afghanistan because the invasion was legitimate. The taliban were harboring OBL and his training camps. The case for invading Iraq, however, was weak, and many recognized this at the time, regardless of what the Fox News commentators claim. Some of us don't like torture either. Some of us don't like the justice department being taken over by political hacks.

And now, for some, the idea of even giving the slightest credit (even begrudgingly), is something that is well beyond them.

I give credit where credit is due. I give him credit for the land he placed under federal protection the last week of his administration. I give him credit for not issuing a bunch of last minute politically based pardons like clinton did. I give him credit for keeping his pants on. I'll even give him credit for driving OBL out of Afghanistan. I wll also give him the blame, however, for not finishing the war in Afghanistan, instead letting the Taliban rebuild, thus losing the peace.

 

[davefoc]

I'm just curious what you base this [Unlikely that any of the other 2000 mainstream presidential candidates would have gone to war in Iraq] on. It seems to me there is a common belief by many people that Bush only went to Iraq to win "daddy's war" or other such explanations. But just saying it doesn't make it true.

I'm curious to know why you suspect that other main stream Republican leaders would have not have taken the country to war in Iraq? What do you base this on? Why is there a belief that the Iraq was some completely personal cowboy moment for Bush?

Things may not have gone rather swimmingly over there in the long run. But I'll always remember the cries of dread before it started. 50k dead! Endless urban warfare! Unwinnable! Vietnam 2! But things actually went so much better than any of that. I'm not in any way convinced it wasn't a good idea to fight the terrorists there, as they came in from Syria, Iran, etc. And I'm not convinced we haven't put a huge hurt on terrorism worldwide.

...

gdnp put forth my views to this post and some posts by others very well, I would like to add a little:

My view that it is unlikely that another mainstream presidential candidate would have gone to war in Iraq is based on three ideas:

1. The Bush administration lied about the strength of evidence that Iraq had WMD.

2. Another administration, Republican or Democrat is unlikely to have engaged in such naked misrepresentations of the facts on such a critically important issue.

3. Without the issue of WMD it is unlikely that a strong enough case for war could have been made to have built a sufficient consensus for the war.

There have been several threads dealing with the issue of whether the Bush administration lied with regard to the representations about WMD before the Iraq war. I think the evidence rises to the level of near certainty that the Bush administration was engaged in conscious misrepresentations about the quality and quantity of evidence that they had to back up their assertions regarding WMD. I understand that you may be one that disagrees with this.

My second assertion is more problematical. The Johnson administration lied about the Bay of Tonkin attacks to justify ramping up the Vietnamese war and I am sure other presidents have lied to build a consensus for a war they believed in. In this case, I think one of the reasons that the Bush administration lied was because they internally believed several things that were either false or self serving. Among these was the idea that the war would be good for Israel, that the war would be good for American business interests and that the war would serve to stabilize the middle east. I think those ideas were problematic enough that they would not have served to bias other administrations sufficiently to make false representations to build the case for war.

My third assertion is based on the statements of numerous politicians with regard to the war. Many Republicans after the fact have suggested that they would have supported the war with or without the WMD issue. I don't find those assertions completely credible. You might.

ETA: I meant to comment on the idea that 50K dead was some gross overestimate of the consequences of this war:
The war resulted in the deaths of hundred's of thousands of Iraqis, the emigration of something in the range of two million Iraqis out of Iraq and the internal relocation of another two million Iraqis. The cost to the Iraqis of this war has been massive and it is far from clear that all their pain is over yet.

The cost to the Americans has been massive also. The middle east, if anything is more unstable than it was when the war began, Americans have run up enormous debts, at least partially as a result of an unfunded war, the relationship with long term American allies has been strained and the credibility of the US as a bastion of human rights has been shattered.

Some of this, of course, has more to do with the inept and corrupt management of the war by the Bush administration than the actual decision to go to war, but it is difficult to determine how the war might have gotten if it had been managed by an administration with average competence and integrity. I suspect that the end result would have been hugely improved.

 

[Cicero]

Who is going to force him to do this? The people that provide the tape of his claim to have won an academy award? I think they live next to the people with the tape of him claiming to have invented the internet. Their address is 1 Cicero lane, Straw Man City, Planet X.

How about a tape of his claim that he created the internet?

"I took the initiative in creating the internet" AlGore
during interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" March 9, 1999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rnv_d_iEu0

 

[Upchurch]

Who is going to force him to do this? The people that provide the tape of his claim to have won an academy award? I think they live next to the people with the tape of him claiming to have invented the internet. Their address is 1 Cicero lane, Straw Man City, Planet X.

gdnp shoots....

How about a tape of his claim that he created the internet?

"I took the initiative in creating the internet" AlGore
during interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" March 9, 1999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rnv_d_iEu0

...and he scores! The crowd goes wild!

 

[Cicero]

gdnp shoots....

...and he scores! The crowd goes wild!

Did you go wild when Snopes reported this about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?

"The lengthy analysis that follows, though, shows that Moore was incorrect on his major, crucial points: the Saudis left after airports reopened, and after being questioned by the FBI."

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp

 

[quixotecoyote]

Did you go wild when Snopes reported this about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?

"The lengthy analysis that follows, though, shows that Moore was incorrect on his major, crucial points: the Saudis left after airports reopened, and after being questioned by the FBI."

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp

I say old chap, the hounds appear to have lost the scent! And what's this bit of fish doing here?

 

[Cicero]

I say old chap, the hounds appear to have lost the scent! And what's this bit of fish doing here?

If you clicked on Upchurch's "...and he scores!" you would pick up the scent.

 

[Upchurch]

Did you go wild when Snopes reported this about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?

I don't go around citing debunked memes the way you do.

 

[quixotecoyote]

If you clicked on Upchurch's "...and he scores!" you would pick up the scent.

hmm

<sniff>

There's a claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet

<sniff>

There's the debunking

Now I'm hot on the trail of the apology and retraction

<sniff>

Woof! Get a newspaper! That's some old herring!

 

[Cicero]

hmm

<sniff>

There's a claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet

<sniff>

There's the debunking

Now I'm hot on the trail of the apology and retraction

<sniff>

Woof! Get a newspaper! That's some old herring!

Not quite, old chum. gdnp erroneously said people accuse AlGore of saying he "invented" the internet, when AlGore actually said he created the internet.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Not quite, old chum. gdnp erroneously said people accuse AlGore of saying he "invented" the internet, when AlGore actually said he created the internet.

And that relates to Michael Moore how exactly?

 

[Upchurch]

And that relates to Michael Moore how exactly?

Cicero throws around tu quoque arguements the way some people exhale.

 

[Prometheus]

Agreed or, at least, that was my experience. I am currently a fully-formed "Bush hater", I suppose, but I wasn't always that way. I was fully behind the decision to go into Afghanistan and I still am. It was the right decision then and in hindsight. I was with him up until he started posturing on Iraq. That made no sense, almost a non sequitor.

I remember that even some of the conservative members on this board were hesitant at that move. They said things like, "he better damn well be right" about the WMDs. He wasn't. That was one of a long string of failures Bush where he would say one thing and reality would reflect something else.

Was Bush the worst President ever? Probably not, but his time in office should be remembered for series of bad decisions it was.

I agree with you. Although I supported Clinton, I voted for Bush in 2000 because I believed, and do to this day, that Gore is nothing but hot air. I did realize at the time that Bush was at best barely competent, but I erroneously assumed that meant he wouldn't be able to damage us much. In retrospect, I think I'd rather have had the hot air than the travesty that Bush became. Still, I didn't start to hate him until after his "Mission Accomplished" speech.

One thing I think is certain: Had Gore won in 2000, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement in general, would be a lot stronger today.

 

[Dr Adequate]

My belief is that after 9-11, everyone came together in a truly honest and touching way. But it wasn't long before Bush haters couldn't stomach it. Not out of a hatred of America, but a hatred of Bush and conservatives. Everyone "went along" with the idea of attack on Afghanistan. There was a handful of protesters, but not very much. But once it got to be Iraq, many on the left simply couldn't withhold their hatred of the man and just let loose on him. They played the patriotic act long enough. They simply couldn't stomach it anymore.

Hatred of Bush! Of course! That's why people opposed the Iraq war!

How have I been so blind? Why didn't I see this before?

I guess partly I was deceived by the cunning of the Bush-haters in feigning support for Bush's actions when he was fighting a justifiable war against an enemy that posed a real threat to America. They're so sneaky, they pretended to approve of him when he was in fact doing the right thing --- a pretense which, now that you've explained it to me, I recognize as low Machiavellian duplicity. As you so felicitously put it, they were merely "playing the patriotic act": for surely it is inconceivable that anyone who subsequently voiced disapproval of any action taken by Bush could have a genuine objection to their country being attacked by terrorists.

And partly I was misled by the fact that, by a supermassive coincidence, the precise moment at which the Bush-haters could no longer contain their bile, and showed their true colors by saying how mindbogglingly stupid Bush's latest policy was, coincided so exactly with the point at which Bush adopted a mindbogglingly stupid policy. That was bit bit of luck for the Bush-haters, wasn't it? Otherwise their naked partisanship might have become apparent even to those of us who lack your awesome powers of mindreading.

Another interesting coincidence is how at that same point so many Republicans who hadn't spent one minute of their time since the first Iraq war clamoring for a second one suddenly realized what a necessary and prudent move it would be. In their collective wisdom they immediately grasped that they shouldn't have listened to that fool George W. Bush preaching against interventionism and nation-building, but should instead embrace the doctrines of nation-building and interventionism, as expounded by that wise global strategist, George W. Bush. Men and women of principle, they rose above mere partisan considerations to support whatever the guy with the (R) next to his name told them was the flavor of the month. I salute them.

 

[Kestrel]

Did you go wild when Snopes reported this about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?

"The lengthy analysis that follows, though, shows that Moore was incorrect on his major, crucial points: the Saudis left after airports reopened, and after being questioned by the FBI."

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp

If you had actually seen the movie, you would have known that Michael Moore said the Saudi's were asked a few questions. They were treated with kid gloves. Contrast this to the fate of many others from the Middle East after 9/11.