>>1. If Al Gore would be the President Powell would no be the Secretary of State and as such the tragic event of Sept. 11 would have not occurred and possible thwarted.
Congratulations. That's the most ridiculous - BIZARRE - thing ever posted on SI. Especially since AlGore headed the task force on airline security formed in the wake of the TWA 800 disaster, where he apparently sold out passenger security for campaign cash:
In 1996, in the aftermath of the crash of TWA Flight 800, President Clinton personally called Mrs. Cummock to ask her to serve as a commissioner on The White House Commission on Aviation Safety, created to investigate the crash. He also appointed Mr. Gore to be its chairman. She was chosen because her husband had been killed in the Pan Am 103/Lockerbie crash. Since then, she had become a leading passenger-rights advocate, and Mr. Clinton had assured her he sincerely wanted to develop new, tough counter-terrorism procedures. He instructed Mr. Gore to make recommendations within 45 days.
The Gore Commission produced a tough preliminary report, and at a Sept. 9, 1996, press conference Mr. Gore publicly asserted the need for those changes. And then, all hell broke loose - but for Mr. Gore, not for the terrorists. "Within ten days, the whole [airline] industry jumped all over Al Gore," Mrs. Cummock reported. On Sept. 19, Mr. Gore sent a letter to airline lobbyist Carol Hallett, promising that the commission's findings would not cause the airlines any loss of revenue. The next day the Democratic National Committee received a $40,000 contribution from TWA. In the next two weeks Northwest, United and American Airlines donated $55,000 more.
In the following two months (leading up to the November 1996 presidential elections) American Airlines donated a quarter of a million dollars to the Democrats. United Airlines donated $100,000 to the DNC. Northwestern upped its anty to $53,000. In all, Mr. Gore and the Democrats collected almost half a million dollars between the election and the day - two months before - that Mr. Gore assured the airlines his commission wouldn't cost them any money.
At the time, White House spokesperson Ginny Terzano refused either to confirm or deny that Mr. Gore personally solicited the airline contributions. But that is not what got Victoria Cummock's dander up.
In January 1997, Mr. Gore's staff circulated a draft final report that eliminated all security measures from their findings. Not only Mrs. Cummock, but CIA Director and fellow Commissioner John Deutch complained. So Mr. Gore pulled back the draft. In February Mr. Gore finally came up with the classic Washington ploy. The final report called for sensible new procedures that would cost the airlines millions of dollars: 450 high tech bomb detectors, more training for airport security, criminal background checks for security personnel, increased canine patrols. But Victoria Cummock noticed one thing was missing - there was no timetable to accomplish these requirements. She informed the vice president that without timetables, the report was "toothless" and she couldn't support it, but instead would file a dissent.
It was a classic Washington victory. The policy wonks got their proposals noticed, the airlines got their bottom line protected and Mr. Gore got his party the money. The only losers were the passengers, who got no increased security from terrorism. So, when Mr. Gore actually had a chance to fight, rather than talk about, the powerful special interests on behalf of the little guy, he turned his money-stuffed coat and protected the interests that bought him.
In an open meeting on Feb. 12, Mr. Gore stated that he would leave room in the final report for Victoria Cummock's dissent. A few minutes later at the White House, as Mr. Gore presented the final report to President Clinton, the vice president announced that the report was unanimous. Both of those Gore lies are on video tape. NBC's Dateline has the tapes.
And so Mrs. Cummock went to court. Not on behalf of some conspiracy theory, but on the right to see commission files that were denied her and the right to file a dissent. She only wanted the commission's own findings to be enforced. After winning in the D.C. Court of Appeals last year, she is slowly gaining discovery of the commission's secret files.
She has already found one interesting document in the secret commission files: A letter to Mr. Gore from his now famous convicted felon fund-raiser Maria Hsia. In that note she talks about the successful fund-raiser at the Buddhist Temple and asks the vice president for help in getting government funding for her to be part of the Project Citizenship initiative. Now, however did that note end up in the secret Gore Commission files? More to come.
This column was researched with the assistance of John B. Roberts II who first reported many of these facts in the American Spectator.
- Source: The Washington Times
Published: September 6, 2000 Author: Tony Blankley
btw, Dems are glad the adults are in charge.
Bush Winning Gore Backers' High Praises [Dem Leaders say: We're glad "Gore did not win"] NYT
Politics/Elections
Source: The NY Times
Published: Oct. 20, 2001 Author: Richard Berke
October 20, 2001
Bush Winning Gore Backers' High Praises
By RICHARD L. BERKE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — As he leads the country in a war on terrorism, President Bush has won over some unlikely supporters, prominent Democrats who campaigned for Al Gore in last year's presidential campaign.
Many Democrats who once dismissed Mr. Bush as too naïve and too dependent on advisers to steer the United States through an international crisis are now praising his and his advisers' performance. Some are even privately expressing satisfaction that Mr. Gore, who tried to make his foreign affairs expertise an issue in the campaign, did not win.
Sounding relieved that Mr. Gore is not president, Representative Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, said: "I feel comfortable with President Bush. I never thought I would utter those words."
He continued: "Even though I'm a Democrat and think the Supreme Court selected our president, I don't think it's to our disadvantage to have George Bush as president. Sometimes you need a certain amount of braggadocio in your leaders."
Perhaps out of a desire to rally around Mr. Bush, not one of more than 15 prominent Gore loyalists interviewed said their candidate would have done a better job.
The most blunt assessments were from Democrats who spoke on the condition that they not be identified. Several said the nation was fortunate to have Mr. Bush in power, and they questioned whether Mr. Gore would have surrounded himself with as experienced a foreign policy team as Mr. Bush did. Citing Mr. Gore's sometimes rambling speech in Des Moines on Sept. 29 in which he praised Mr. Bush, some Democrats also questioned whether the former vice president would have been as nimble at communicating to the public.....
nytimes.com
...Still, many Democrats said they felt particularly reassured by Mr. Bush's team, particularly Vice President Cheney; Mr. Powell, the secretary of state; and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary.
The diminished confidence in Mr. Gore that some Democrats are expressing is a big change from last year's campaign, when Gore supporters argued that Mr. Gore should be elected because of his grasp of world affairs, if for no other reason. At a rally only days before the election, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Mr. Gore's running mate, asserted, "When I think of a solitary figure standing in the Oval Office, weighing life and death decisions that can affect the security of our country and the stability of our world, I see Al Gore."...
Let's hope Lieberman got some glasses at long last. |
