Al Gore did the Republicans a big favor with his "Bush the Traitor" speech over the weekend. "Real Clear Politics."
AL GORE TO THE RESCUE: Thank God for Al Gore. No, really. Yesterday amid all the chatter and punditizing over Bush's Meet the Press interview - much of which was not very complimentary, by the way, but we'll get to more of that in a minute - here comes Big Al, screeching that George W. Bush "betrayed" the country.
Chris Suellentrop of Slate described Gore's speech to Tennessee Democrats last night as one "angry, sweaty shout "and another example of Gore trying to "convince the world that Bush is one of history's worst presidents."
According to Suellentrop, here is what Gore said:
"I think there were millions just like me, who genuinely, in spite of whatever partisanship they may have felt prior to that time, genuinely felt like they wanted George W. Bush to lead all of us in America wisely and well.
And the reason I'm recalling those feelings now is because those are the feelings that were betrayed by this president! He betrayed this country! He played on our fears! He took America, he took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!
And so I say to you in closing my friends, in the year of 2004, the truth shall rise again!"
I'm afraid the truth is going to have a pretty hard time finding its way out of such ridiculous partisan crap.
But back to the good news for George W. Bush. In many ways, the arc of Al Gore's career perfectly mirrors the transformation of the Democratic party over the last two decades: Gore started as a conservative member of the House, moved a little to the left during his tenure in the Senate, a little bit further to the left as Bill Clinton's vice-president, went way left as a presidential candidate in 2000 and in the last two years since 9/11 Gore's proven himself to be a far left fever swamp dweller.
All I can say is, "keep it up." Please. The Democratic party looks increasingly like a junkie strung out on Bush-hating drugs. They have no vision for the future, are unable to articulate any serious policy alternatives, and now live only for the next high, which usually comes in the form of slanderous, ad hominem attacks on the President like the one Al Gore delivered last night. Or the ones channeled through groups like MoveOn.org.
Hence the base's utter indifference to John Kerry as a person, as a candidate, and to his current and past positions on the issues. The party's hollowness is summed up neatly by the breathtaking banality of their current call to arms: "Anybody but Bush."
This is the first presidential election in America since three thousand of our fellow citizens were killed by terrorists on our own soil and Democrats are coming to the country with the message "anybody but Bush." Um, okay.
Such a blatantly shallow message may work if Iraq goes badly and the economy stops producing jobs. But if not,this November John Kerry and his fellow Democrats could find themselves standing in the middle of a gunfight holding a pocketknife.
THE GUARD: The main reason Terry McAuliffe, John Kerry, and many liberal blogs have taken to regurgitating the "Bush was AWOL" charge with such verve is because they know they can't beat the president arguing national security policy so they have to try discredit him personally. Frankly, I find it to be a bit on the scummy side.
As I've written before, I'm not such a Kool-Aid drinking Bush supporter to be completely closed off to the idea that Bush may have missed a few meetings in Alabama while serving in the National Guard.
But as things stand now - and as they've stood for the past three years - the facts don't support an AWOL charge against the President, no matter how much you may love or hate him.
Because if you take a step back and think about this for a second, even if you grant Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall their worst case scenario against Bush - that he blew off Guard duty for an entire year and then crammed at the end to fulfill his requirement before heading off to business school - there really is no getting around the fact that Bush did indeed fulfill his service obligation and received an honorable discharge from the National Guard. That fact alone makes the AWOL charge a scurrilous one.
Let's assume for the sake of argument the truth lies somewhere in the middle; that Bush reported to duty in Alabama a couple of times and the records got lost along the way, but also that he did miss some service during that year.
Unless you're willing to challenge the veracity of Bush's discharge then Kevin, Josh and the rest are left trying to prove the unprovable, all the while ignoring the only salient fact (Bush's honorable discharge) in order to trade in speculation and innuendo that casts aspersions on Bush's character.
I hate to say it but, I'm sorry, this seems like Vince Foster territory to me: "I know we've got the police report, the note, and the independent investigation saying it was a suicide, but you know the press hasn't been doing their job and if they would just look at Hillary's phone records or......"
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is something in Bush's service record and the bloggers I've mentioned are performing an invaluable service by helping bring it to light. If so, then even though I'm uncomfortable with how they've gone about it, I may have to say the ends justify the means.
But if they can't produce proof or come up with anything more than endless streams speculation over the next 8 months then they will have performed a great injustice to the President and to their readers. And they may also help reinforce the notion among some that the blogosphere is nothing more than an online rumor mill. That would be most unfortunate.
BUSH ON MTP: Some thought he did well, some not so well. I thought the President did a decent job, but I think he suffered yesterday from not being eloquent enough to make his case as well as it could have been made. During the interview I kept thinking to myself, "if Bill Clinton were in the same exact situation making the exact same argument, he'd be knocking it out of the park." Bush could only hit a single.
My main gripe is that the President didn't make a strong enough case in defense of the nature of the intelligence he received. If I had been advising the President, I would have suggested he say something like this:
"Tim, you know, intelligence gathering is a difficult business. The United States government strives every single day to produce the best intelligence it can and every administration tries to make the best judgments it can based on that intelligence.
Is the intelligence business infallible? Of course not. Some of it is correct, some incorrect, and some in between. But we have to take it all together, as a body of evidence to make our decisions.
Let me give you an example. In the months prior to September 11 we picked up some very vague "chatter" from various places on possible terrorist activities. Looking back, we also see now that there were scraps of information floating around different agencies of the CIA and FBI regarding some of the hijackers.
Was all of the intelligence out there true? No. Some of it was and some of it wasn't. But looking back we know now that there was a grave threat to America gathering right within our own borders that resulted in the death of more than 3,000 of our fellow citizens.
My job as President is to work as hard as I can and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent such an event from happening again and to make America safer.
And let me say, sitting down to look at the intelligence reports on Iraq and Saddam Hussein after September 11 - years worth of evidence not only from our government but from other governments around the world as well as the United Nations - there was no question in my mind or the mind of any of the members of my administration that Saddam represented a serious threat to America the world. So we acted. And we did the right thing."
I just think using a pre-9/11 example makes the argument much more powerful and blunts one of the major criticisms coming from the left. I'd be willing to bet most Americans only wish now the administration had "cherry picked" intel from the FBI on the September 11 hijackers. - T. Bevan 8:16 am | Link | Email |
