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October 4, 2007Al Gore’s got my vote!(Via Instapundit.) Or, he did, once upon a time. Watch the tape, before it is taken down. As I have said before:
And once again, If a President Clinton had taken out Saddam, liberated these people and helped them install a democratic government, we’d be hearing stories about great humanitarianism and whether or not he (or she) should be added to Mt. Rushmore. A while back I wondered how it had suddenly come about that the “abandonment of the Iraqi people” by the Bush 41 administration has suddenly become “sound policy” to 21st Century Democrats. Never made sense to me. Al Gore, while he was vice-president, he couldn’t do much to address Saddam Hussein, and President Clinton didn’t do much, either, so far as we know. But Gore certainly appreciated the threat from Iraq early on, and he clearly wanted to do something about it, too, doesn’t it sound like it in that tape? When he laid out all of the evils of the Iraqi regime, I know he wasn’t playing on our fears! He was prescient! Hmmm…prescient! Maybe I should start listening to him and his friends about “manmade” global warming? Ummmmm…nahhhh, not yet. In ten years he might be saying something totally different. And btw, I supported that Al Gore, too, and thought he was the strong addition to the Clinton ticket, at the time. Welcome Instapundit readers! While you’re here please look around. Today we’re also discussing when and why I left the Democrats and we’re taking a sort of silly but fun timewasting personality test. http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/10/04/al-gores-got-my-vote/trackback/ 19 Responses to “Al Gore’s got my vote!” |
October 4th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
In term of rethoric up to the date of the inavsion of Iraq, was there anything really different between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush?
My (somewhat liberal) wife and I were discussing this in light of Obama’s somewhat congratulatory “I was Right Five Years Ago Today” speech that he gave at DePaul. Obama has the Iraqi War vote as a club over just his major rivals.
Yet, will anyone really say where the difference in rethoric is? The only difference is that at least until the moment of the invasion, Bush seemed to act like he really believed what we had all been hearing for 9 years.
One other thing which is interesting is that Dennis Kucinich voted for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. What exactly did he think he was voting for?
October 4th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Oh, and BTW — Happy Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi! We Italians (OK — Italian Americans) like our saints slightly mad!
http://thecatholiclibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/10/saints-and-madmen-st-francis-of-assisi.html
October 4th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Yup it is outrageous that Gore is running around saying what he is saying about Iraq. It is outrageous that any Democrat is saying the war was immoral.
In a wide ranging article I published about 2 months ago I highlighted this video.
Democracy a fool’s errand or our only way out? Jeane Kirkpatrick responds”
October 4th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
[...] Gore’s Hypocrisy Revealed Credit to LGF, Instapundit and The Anchoress about this vid showing Al Gore blasting Sr. President Bush and his failure to act on Iraq and [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
What Would Al Do?…
Roger L. Simon:I believe in my heart that had Al Gore been elected president in 2000 (and as we all know he almost was he won the popular vote), he would be just as knee deep in the War……
October 4th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
ED:
Not likely.
October 4th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
You know, I think Gore would have gone into Iraq, too. After 9/11, he would have had all the same intel that Bush had, and it was all the same intel the Clinton administration had been talking about since 1998. I think he would have gotten just as bogged down, too, because no matter who was the American president, the Iraqi people would still have needed time to come to hate Al Qaeda, and time to trust the US, particularly after having been let down the last time by us.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I am not so sure Gore would have done this. I think Gore would have asked for a poll and whoever won the bigger number of votes in the poll would determine what Gore would do. I don’t think Gore has a belief system that will allow him to actually stand up for what he truly believes unless the polls tell him to. He is just too driven to make people like him to really be a leader. That is the main reason I could never have voted for Gore in the first place. I just did not trust him to do what he said he would do. I have the same problem with Hillary. She will be so busy tailoring her message to everybody that when you go to vote you will not know what Hillary you are voting for. She has been on just about every side of every issue and she still hasn’t said anything that I would trust at all. I think Gore would be more of the same as would Obama.
I grew up in an area where even FDR could only carry the district one time in his four terms. I listen to what the democrats have to say and it goes against the grain of everything I believe. We were taught to be self-supporting and take care of our own problems as much as possible. You went to the government for help only as a last resort. The people helped each other and watched out for each other. The murder of Kitty Genovese (that is dating myself!!) would almost certainly not have happened where I grew up. The people would have been out there after the perp in a heartbeat. Even when it came to schools they took care of their own. The year after I got out of high school the people determined that we needed a new school and a new YMCA. They raised the money for the new school and the new YMCA and met the needs of the UGF all in less than 10 days and this was in a town of about 10K people. Can you see the democrats doing that from the people?
That is why when I hear Hillary saying it takes a village, it would mean two different things to each of us. To her it would be the village takes over and the people go along. To me it would be that the people in the village join in voluntarily and make it happen. Very different approaches and I know for sure which one I prefer.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
More likely, Algore would have simply lobbed a few cruise missiles and dropped a couple of bombs and declared victory. After all, the Clinton Administration had known for years about the threat of Saddam, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda and that is all that they did — drop a few bombs now and then — and that is all they did in Bosnia. Meanwhile, we’d all be wondering now, do they or don’t they have the bomb?
Meanwhile, I see that Rudy G. has little use for shepherds of the Church, and he cares little about whether he receives the sacraments or not. Oh, Rudy, it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world . . .
October 5th, 2007 at 7:25 am
[...] video seems to be making the rounds [...]
October 5th, 2007 at 7:51 am
People seem to forget that as a divorced man who has remarried outside of the church and without an annulment, Rudy must already recuse himself from Communion.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:35 am
I don’t dispute the Hussein was an aggressive monster whose crimes warranted his removal from power and who ultimately got what he deserved, but his crimes, sins, and threats of aggression did not alone justify a war against his regime. War always produces a miasma of multiple evil consequences, and another question in assessing the justification of a war is whether the evils produced are graver than the evil to be eliminated. Making this assessment becomes all the more difficult (if not impossible) by the manifold unintended and unforeseen consequences of a war. Since the fall of Hussein, Iraq has been plagued by many evils, some foreseen, others unexpected, and these evils stretch beyond the borders of Baghdad, Iraq, and the Middle East. One of the unintended consequences of our war is the affect it has had on the conservative mind. Today conservatism is closely associated with militarism. Being “conservative” and winning the hearts and minds of many conservative citizens no longer requires that one be a defender of the permanent things, or of the dignity of the unborn, or of a prudent policy. One need only be strong on national defense. What will get you laughed at by Republican presidential candidates and mocked by the conservative media is having anti-war views.
Of course, had Al Gore become president in 2000 and gone into Iraq, the evils produced would have been much the same. I wonder though, what would have become of the conservative mind had a liberal taken us to war.
Was this war worth it? Can that question even be adequately answered?
October 5th, 2007 at 8:45 am
That which you say has been said so well by you!
Thanks!
October 5th, 2007 at 11:29 am
About Rudy and Communion, you are absolutely correct, and the whole discussion is rather embarassing evidence for the old backhanded compliment, “pretty smart for a bishop.”
October 5th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I think Al would have gone into Iraq.. At the time the majority of Americans also believed we should go in. And people were tired of messing with Saddam.
And Kyle, there is also a cost to inaction. If we had not gone into Iraq Saddam would not have turned into a harmless little soul. In all likelihood, he would have rebuilt his mothballed wmd programs, given more aid and money to terrorists, got the sanctions lifted so that he could get back to killing hundreds of thousands of his own people and using oil as a weapon by threatening his neighbors and the world economy.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Al Gore on Iraq in 1992…
Sounds different today, but is it because he learned something different or because the party line is different now? BTW, he’s running for VP here and criticizing the first President Bush.
Hat Tip: The Anchoress via Instapundit.
……
October 7th, 2007 at 9:43 am
[...] The Anchoress says The Goracle has her vote. No, seriously [...]
October 7th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Terrye, I never said that inaction was the best policy, nor did I insinuate that Hussein would have turned into a harmless little soul had we done nothing. In all likelihood he would have continued to be the hell-bent, murderous monster that he always was—even when he had our support. My point was that the particular policy of war produced evils the gravity and number of which it is impossible to calculate. As for the sanctions imposed upon Iraq by the U.N., they were possibly less humane than our invasion. The sanctions, combined with the destroyed water-treatment facilities in the first Gulf War, lead to the deaths of half-a-million Iraqis, mostly women and children. Of course Hussein bears blame for their deaths, but we have their blood on our hands as well, for we knew the kind of beast he was, a dictator insensitive to the plight of his own people, and we imposed the sanctions anyway.
There is evil in this world that we can do something about, and there is evil that is beyond our power to stop without the cure being worse than the disease. A war cannot be justified without the evils produced by the war being less grave than the evil to be eliminated. If we cannot calculate the consequences of our war, then we do not have the right to go to war, even against a real aggressor like Hussein. That, however, doesn’t mean we do nothing.
October 8th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Great Web Site Anchoress.
I would be interested in hearing your comments on Chris Matthew’s new book. He was interviewed about it on The Daily Show (see http://hotair.com/archives/2007/10/03/video-stewart-savages-matthews-on-the-daily-show/)
The title of the book is: “Life is a Campaign”
Kind of says it all about the state of the Democratic party’s soul, doesn’t it?