Gore Jumps the Shark*.

...unless, of course, there's been one hell of a taking-out-of-context: Gore Says Bush Betrayed the U.S. by Using 9/11 as a Reason for War in Iraq:

NASHVILLE, Feb. 8 — In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

Now, I know that we hear stuff like this all the time on the Internet, so we're all desensitized, but Gore didn't say this on the Internet. He said it live, and on the record, and apparently happily ignorant of the fact that politicians who accuse sitting Presidents of the next thing to treason had better damned well have some evidence to back them up. He can't pull a Michael Moore and claim that it was entertainment; he'll need to give proof of his allegations... or be raw meat for the media. I'm betting on raw meat, myself.

The only question is, who wound him up and set him off? Was this one of our ops or one of theirs? - because God doesn't love George Bush that much, false rumors of His Republicanism to the contrary...

*Or, as Oliver Kamm put it: "... Al Gore confirmed his unfitness for public office with a speech whose standards of tawdriness and mendacity will remain unsurpassed till the stars burn out and the heavens implode."

Well, I don't know if I'd go that far.

Comments

[praktike]

yeah, he sure is letting it rip these days.

by the bye, it is not "fact" that "politicians who accuse sitting Presidents of the next thing to treason had better damned well have some evidence to back them up."

It's an opinion.

[Mithras]

What's the scandal, Moe? Bush linked 9/11 and Iraq in the public's mind, when there was no (or at least, no good) evidence that it was true. He intentionally relied on the people's belief that the President would use good judgment and be truthful on matters of war, when in fact it seems strongly likely Bush was being misleading, at best. What do you call such actions, if not a betrayal?

[spc67]

Gore jumped the shark when he endorsed the mayor of Milwaukee, er, the ex-Governor of Vermont, Dr. YEAAAAAAAAARGH for President.

Can one re-jump a shark?

[Josh]

Hey, you been asleep at the wheel? Not only has this already been blogged about elsewhere, but Dan Drezner's even got a reaction to the reaction up. You're never going to make it into Insta-/Calpundit territory at this pace.

[Jesurgislac]

He said it live, and on the record, and apparently happily ignorant of the fact that politicians who accuse sitting Presidents of the next thing to treason had better damned well have some evidence to back them up.

What's the problem, Moe?

In the opinion of many - me included - Bush did betray the US when he veered away from al-Qaeda to invading Iraq. Al-Qaeda may well still be a threat to the US: Iraq never was. And the Bush administration has yet to provide any convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda. Whether the Bush administration had plans to invade Iraq before 9/11 is unknown: but it's certain that many high-level members of the Bush administration did - check out the PNAC site.

Do you think that a politician gets their free speech privileges removed when they become politicians?

You can disagree with Al Gore that pouring billions into invading and occupying Iraq, instead of focussing on al-Qaeda, was a betrayal of the American people. Your free speech privileges are intact.

"He betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

Sentence one: subjective judgement, but I'd agree. Sentence two: proof for that is all over the Internet. Setence three, part 1: are you claiming that the invasion of Iraq was not an "illconceived foreign adventure"? Or that it was not "dangerous to our troops"? Sentence three, part 2: "preordained" is too strong, I'll grant you, since while we know PNAC wanted to invade Iraq, we can't be sure they'd have got their way without 9/11.

We know Bush linked 9/11 and Iraq in the public's minds. (Hell, Cheney was doing it out loud and direct in a couple of speeches.) We know that billions have gone into invading and occupying Iraq, while Osama bin Laden is somewhere, who knows where? We know that al-Qaeda are still out there. We know that Bush & Co obstructed and delayed the 9/11 commission, and want to have the report put off till after the November election. We know that PNAC wanted Iraq invaded, that the White House cherrypicked information from intel to make the best case for invasion (and that's my kindest interpretation - not that Bush lied, but that he was kept deliberately ignorant so that he could say things that weren't true without being aware of it). How much more evidence do you need, Moe, before you'll allow that anyone has the right to say that Bush betrayed the US - after all, we watched it happen?

[James Casey]

I'm more or less with Jesurgislac on this one, Moe - I don't think there's irrefutable proof, but what about the Rumsfeld memo on Sept. 11:

"best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. at same time. Not only UBL."

Has this been debunked?

There's a great deal of reasonable suspicion - and not the ravings of rabid anti-Bush folk - that Bush wanted Hussein out before Sept. 11.

Perhaps Gore's way of putting it is too much, not calculated enough; but I think you're a bit blinkered if (and I may be wrong) you're dismissing the allegation automatically. There's quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.

[Moe Lane]

Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break it to all of you, but using the phrase "He betrayed this country!" to describe Bush's plans for regime change in Iraq (which came up in the election, IIRC) is not acceptable discourse for the mainstream. Especially when the accuser in question was part of an administration that in 1998 endorsed the replacement of the same regime. Gore will survive my disapproval: he won't survive Bill Clinton's.

Moe

PS: And I don't have the resources or time to instant-blog, Josh.

[Jesurgislac]

Oh, come off it, Moe. Trying to claim that because Gore supported Desert Fox in 1998 he must needs also support the 2003 OIL invasion is just bizarre - it's the kind of thinking I expect from wingnuts, not from you. Did Thorley calling you a leftie worry you that much?

using the phrase "He betrayed this country!" to describe Bush's plans for regime change in Iraq (which came up in the election, IIRC) is not acceptable discourse for the mainstream.

1. Cite me where, in the 2000 election, Bush said he was planning to invade and occupy Iraq if he won.

2. "Not acceptable discourse for the mainstream"... so it's okay to think that Bush betrayed the US by turning American resources off al-Qaeda and onto Iraq, while misleading the US public by claiming that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq justifying this... but it's not okay to come right out and say so?

[M. Scott Eiland]

With Clark going the way of the dodo and Dean bleeding cash and supporters by the hour, one wonders if Kerry and Edwards have the sense to run to sympathetic judges and get restraining orders to keep Michael Moore and Mr. Gore as far away from them as possible.

[fabius]

He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.

Since this part of the quote is undeniably true you must be objecting to the part where Gore says that Bush betrayed the country. Yet Gore's conclusion sits quite comfortably on the true assertion above.

But if you're asserting that Republicans will wrap Bush in a flag like a force field and leave off the truth of Gore's statement and focus on the conclusion with ad hominem attacks you're right, as Oliver Kamm's article and your post attest.

[Michael N.]

Gore will survive my disapproval: he won't survive Bill Clinton's.

Gore is finished as a part of the Democratic Party mainstream, and has been for a while. Getting beaten like he did in 2000 has guaranteed him a political career on the edges. His various and sundry weaknesses were made manifest; I know that I, and many other Tennesseans, were distinctly unimpressed with him as a candidate for any public office, and we knew him from a long time back.

As time passes, though, he's going to have to continue staking out positions that are more and more dramatic in order to keep from becoming Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis. Taking a professorship at Middle Tennessee State doesn't help, either -- don't get me wrong, I've got friends who went to MTSU, but the only reason to take that spot is to try to ingratiate himself with Tennessee voters, and they're just not going to buy that.

[James Casey]

My initial thinking about 'betrayed' is that it's a strong word. But if you believe that Bush took the country to war for reasons like oil, or PNAC, then it is a betrayal in a sense, because it's putting certain things above his duty to his office, and therefore his country.

I think Bush has chosen his inner circle unwisely, and I think they've let him and your country down. I don't want to be gratuitous about it, but I do have concerns about his competence. And I certainly don't believe he's playing a game to make us all think he's incompetent. I think he's quite lucky and was wise to choose to listen to advisers, but chose the wrong ones. Rumsfeld is surely an embarrassment.

But how much does it really matter what Al Gore says? Who is he these days? His endorsement of Howard Dean did nada. If Gore decides to run for President in the future, this may come back to haunt him, but I strongly suspect history will not be favourable to Bush.

If you accept the Iraq war was preconceived (and that's not tough to do), then it's keeping America in the dark. Maybe betrayal is the wrong terminology...

[James Casey]

What Michael N. said.

[JKC]

Moe-

What if Gore hadn't used the word "betrayed" in his speech? What if he had said "Bush sidetracked the War on Terrorism? He played on our fears..." etc?

Would he have seemed less shrill? Would his subsequent points have seemed more valid?

[fabius]

Clinton v Bush in the battle of betrayal.

[fabius]

Hyde on Clinton: "When the debate began Friday, Hyde said Clinton betrayed the public trust by lying under oath and should be removed from office."

Dems had 8 years of public officials saying the President betrayed the country. Gore is a private citizen. He has at least the same authority as your average Repub pundit propogandist. Excuse me if I don't share your outrage.

[carpeicthus]

For what it's worth, the context of the piece and the "betrayal" wasn't the going into iraq, it was what Gore saw as cynically using the horror of 9/11 to push his own policy goal. Not likely to change any minds, but it might sharpen the debate.

[James Casey]

There certainly was an effort to associate Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida in peoples' minds without actually saying the two are in cahoots; all that stuff like "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein" from the SOTU speech Jan 2003.

Or how about the letter to Congress, item 2:

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Note to people who don't understand the difference between 'betrayed the public trust' and the 'betrayed' in the foreign policy sense: think about potential differences a bit longer.

"an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

The funniest thing about this Gore quote is that he fails to mention that it was the Clinton/Gore administration who did the planning he is talking about here.
I guess, "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned by Clinton before 9/11 ever took place." isn't as punchy.

[Iron Lungfish]

Sorry, Moe. Not buying it. This is old news - not Gore jumping the shark, but Bush using 9/11 to push us into war, Bush squandering the international goodwill toward America post-9/11, the Iraq War being planned long, looong before 9/11 (or even before Bush took office). And that isn't some loony conspiracy. All of this comes from PNAC position papers. These guys were hot, hot, hot for Baghdad in a bad way. 9/11 was incidental.

The reaction against "angry Democrats" has always amused me, because "angry Republicans" have gotten a ton of traction (Gingrinch used it to take Congress in '94). The clucking of tongues over Dean and Gore isn't "Oh how off-the-wall they are," it's irritation and - let's be frank - nervousness over the fact that Democrats have teeth now.

[Jesurgislac]

Note to people who don't understand the difference between 'betrayed the public trust' and the 'betrayed' in the foreign policy sense: think about potential differences a bit longer.

I take it that is aimed at Moe?

The funniest thing about this Gore quote is that he fails to mention that it was the Clinton/Gore administration who did the planning he is talking about here.

Sebastian, I can't believe that you don't know about PNAC, and that you don't know that Clinton and Gore were never PNAC initiates. I'd say I was amused by your ignorance, but the fact is, I don't believe it.

[Josh]

Man, it's going to be a long, ugly campaign.

[sidereal]

Oh come on now. Is Bush so fragile? The Republicans so sensitive? He was just whooping it up to some partisans.

"is not acceptable discourse for the mainstream"

Oh lordy. Any use of this claim or any of its variants ("lacks gravitas", "unsuitable rhetoric", "gutter politics") is unimpeachable proof that you have no ground to stand on. Either what he was saying was verifiably false, verifiably true, or sufficiently fuzzy and abstract to be neither.

[James Casey]

MOE! Where are you? It is vitally important that you stop whatever you are doing and rejoin this thread! The world will not be at rest until you have replied.

[kenB]

To me, the rhetoric seems over the top coming from a former VP, but not much different from what you might hear from your average Congressional bombthrower. It does make me wonder whether Gore has written off politics and is letting loose his true inner liberal, or whether he's trying to position himself for something (exactly what, I don't know -- something other than President, anyway).

[crionna]

He played on our fears.

Wow, am I tired of this one. I, for one, was not, am not and hope to never be afraid, I was, am and hope to continue to be resolute.

I think that assuming Americans are afraid rather than resolute is a mistake OBL and the rest of the terrorist supporting nations have, are and unfortunately may continue to make; to their great misfortune.

[Jesurgislac]

Crionna, go you! But Bush wanted you to be so scared that invading Iraq looked like a good idea. If it didn't work, good for you!

[crionna]

Jes, I haven't seen reports/polls that it worked on anyone. And it didn't, at least not on anyone that I know. However, congratulations on being the first person I've heard about that I could put on the "I was afraid because of what The President said" side of the ledger. And, props right back to you for overcoming your fear and exercising your right to protest.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Sebastian, I can't believe that you don't know about PNAC, and that you don't know that Clinton and Gore were never PNAC initiates. I'd say I was amused by your ignorance, but the fact is, I don't believe it."

Please look up Clinton's position on regime change. Hint: google Clinton 1998 "regime change" february.

One doesn't have to care about PNAC to think that Iraq was a threat. Just ask either Clinton.

[Moe Lane]

"MOE! Where are you?"

Previously? At work, where I cannot post to this site. Right now? Snatching time away from a extremely good-smelling pot roast. IOW, I'll get back to you guys later. :)

[Gary Farber]

"crionna":"I, for one, was not, am not and hope to never be afraid...."

That's quite an assertion. You weren't in New York on September 11th, I take it?

[Bird Dog]

I can't believe you lefties agree with what Gore said. Accusing a fellow American of betraying his country is a serious charge tantamount to treason. There is no place for this kind of rhetoric in mainstream politics. I am left to conclude that Gore is no longer mainstream, along with you who agree with him.

[Moe Lane]

As to comments... sorry, it's still outside acceptable discourse for the mainstream, guys. Which translates to 'Gore will never win another election'.

And to answer JKC, if Gore had said 'sidetracked' instead of 'betrayed' I wouldn't have bothered posting this - because 'sidetracked' is on one side of a line and 'betrayed' is on the other. You may, of course, disagree if you like.

Moe

[crionna]

Gee Gary, are you saying that the only people that The President was targeting with the scare tactics were New Yorkers?

[Jesurgislac]

Crionna, thanks, but it didn't work on me either - because I figured he was lying, and I was right. It was the people who believed Bush who got scared - so scared that they thought it was a good idea to invade Iraq.

(Okay, I'll admit to one area of fear: when the actual invasion of Iraq took place, I was afraid. Even though my reason told me that Bush & Co were lying about WoMD, my gut was crawling that they'd been right and that thousands of US and UK soldiers were going to die horribly. Then, I was afraid.)

[crionna]

Well, bully for you Jes! So, who was scared? Anyone? I haven't met anyone who was scared into supporting the war. Have you? I thought I had, but you tell me different. Hell, I can't even say I know anyone who even listened to the State of the Union. The folks I know either thought like you, or thought like me. None of them seemed scared that Hussein was gonna launch a nuke our way, rather that The President had decided that now was the time to finish the job that was started in Gulf War I and they either agreed or not.

I agreed. I assume you did not. That's ok, this is America. I give those who thought like me more credit than "they were scared", just as I give those who thought like you more credit than "they support tyranny".

[Jesurgislac]

I haven't met anyone who was scared into supporting the war.

Met? No. Heard from on the Internet? Plenty. Loads of people told me online that the reason why Iraq had to be attacked was because they had WMD and represented a threat to the US... and this scared them out of their (I hope) usual good sense and into supporting a pre-emptive attack.

Sure, some people championed the attack on Iraq on the basis that it was just finishing off the 1991 Gulf War. This was nonsense, of course - legally speaking - but people will believe the utmost nonsense if they're told it's so by people who should know better.