Do you ever wonder how different our country would be today if Al Gore had become President in 2000, instead of George W. Bush?
Obviously,
that
election will be argued about for a long time, and both sides will never agree. But there is one thing that is
not in dispute:
More Americans voted for Al Gore than for George W. Bush.
Being from Mars, it strikes me as very odd that 500,000 more citizens could have voted for Gore, yet Bush became President. And yes, I know all about the Electoral College, but I'm not convinced that it still makes sense today. After all: Is America 50 states, or one nation?
And did Bush really win Florida?
But I digress.
My real point is this: I think that America would be a far stronger, far safer country today if Al Gore had won. I don't think the guy is perfect, but I do know this: He's a lot smarter than Bush. And he made it clear a few days ago that he's a man of action -- unlike the President.
In case you missed it:
On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. "The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute - food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote. Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.
What did Bush do? Uh... exactly nothing. And after a couple of weeks of blistering criticism from both parties, on September 13th Bush finally admitted that he screwed up.
I'd say he needs to follow Michael Brown's example, and resign.
On September 9, 2005, former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech at Sierra Club's National Environmental Convention and Expo in San Francisco. Here are a few excerpts.
When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic floodwaters five days after a hurricane strikes, it is time to hold the leaders of our nation accountable for the failures that have taken place.
Two words:
Impeach Bush.
Four years ago in August of 2001, President Bush received a dire warning: "Al Qaeda determined to attack inside the US." No meetings were called, no alarms were sounded, no one was brought together to say, "What else do we know about this imminent threat? What can we do to prepare our nation for what we have been warned is about to take place?"
If there had been preparations, they would have found a lot of information collected by the FBI, and CIA and NSA -- including the names of most of the terrorists who flew those planes into the WTC and the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania; the warnings of FBI field offices that there were suspicious characters getting flight training without expressing any curiosity about the part of the training that has to do with landing. They would have found directors of FBI field offices in a state of agitation about the fact that there was no plan in place and no effective response. Instead, it was vacation time, not a time for preparation. Or protecting the American people.
And my favorite part of Al Gore's speech:
In the early days of the unfolding catastrophe, the President compared our ongoing efforts in Iraq to World War II and victory over Japan. Let me cite one difference between those two historical events: When imperial Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt did not invade Indonesia [applause].
Read the rest here.
Sinclair Lewis said, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." Someone else once remarked (it has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln) that America would never be destroyed from the outside; if it could be destroyed, it would be subverted from within.
I will forever think of December 12, 2000, as the day America was subverted from within.
Read The Martian Anthropologist.