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An Inconvenient Truth
April 19, 2006 8:19 AM Subscribe

The Campaign Gore Can't Lose.Al Gore makes the case for global warming. (Trailer) Even the hard-bitten conservatives at the National Review are impressed. Can Al Gore lead the way to a new environmental majority?
posted by empath (207 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

Botched the first link:

Should be to this:
posted by empath at 8:24 AM on April 19, 2006

Missed it by that much.
posted by spock at 8:26 AM on April 19, 2006

Richard Cohen on the film and a potential presidential bid.

The more I hear Hillary has the nomination locked up, the more I think a tan, rested Gore might do the trick for my party. I'm pretty darn split, but then I picture Gore going around the country reminding people that he won a majority of American votes in 2000, and he could easil do it again given the approval numbers of Bush and friends.

But then I remember his wife. And his daughters. If he could ditch them, I'd volunteer for his campaign in a second.
posted by bardic at 8:27 AM on April 19, 2006

Why is it that failed former presidential candidates never run a second time (is this even true?) I wish Gore would run (and win) a second time, he always seemed like a smart guy with his head screwed on. Such a shame he couldn't have gotten a few more votes way back when. Ah well.
posted by zeoslap at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2006

I'll flag mine as a double and do it this way:

"Is it possible that we should prepare for other threats, beside terrorists?"
A hit documentary from the Sundance Film Festival comes to the big screen: An Inconvenient Truth (trailers). Not your usual Official Movie Website. Reviews: 1,2, 3, New Yorker & IMDB users weigh in. Gore at a Sundance Q&A :
"I like to think of myself as a recovering politician".
posted by spock at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2006

*Urp* Sorry for reposting empath's link.
posted by bardic at 8:29 AM on April 19, 2006

Can Al Gore lead the way to a new environmental majority?

Being an actual environmentalist takes some measure of effort and sacrifice, right? So, no. Especially not in America. As Patrick Henry so eloquently said "Give me convenience, or give me death." Those words have never been truer than they are today.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:29 AM on April 19, 2006

Why is it that failed former presidential candidates never run a second time (is this even true?)

Nixon re-ran for president I believe. Clinton ran for prez after losing for governor, which is kind of a big deal.
posted by bardic at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2006

See how easy it is to do things twice Mr Gore?
posted by zeoslap at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2006

Bardic, Spock: entirely my fault for botching the first URL in my initial post.
posted by empath at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2006

I wish the trailer were better.
posted by blueshammer at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2006

Everyone should be watching Gore very, very closely.

He won the popular vote in the 'hanging chad' election, at a time when GWB's popularity was far, far higher than it is now.

Crucially, he voted the right way on the Iraq debacle.

He's conspicuously on the right side on global warming.

He isn't hated like Hillary, who voted the wrong way, and whom even turncoat Repubs are going to have a hard time voting for.

He doesn't have the patrician baggage of Kerry, who voted the wrong way.

He's from the South, which is almost a pre-requisite for a Dem President these days.

He's married to Tipper, which reassures the moral majority folks.

Joking aside, he gets the internets.

Now he's about to get a HUGE wave of positive publicity.

And oddly he no longer has the whiff of a professional politician.

It's looking more and more and more like Gore to me. Given the 2000 election result and the president poll numbers, it's hard to see how he could lose against Bush, absent some kind of October surprise.

The only real question is the running mate.
posted by unSane at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2006

Why is it that failed former presidential candidates never run a second time (is this even true?)

No.
Adlai Stevenson
John McCain
Richard Nixon
etc.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2006

Corrected New Yorker link
posted by empath at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2006

There were some dudes on NPR yesterday talking about "the environmental movement" as it existed in post-WWII America, and whether it was dead, and I liked what the guy from the Sierra Club had to say: the only thing that's dead is the ability of the federal government to act in the people's interest when it comes to the environment. He cited Idaho's recent move to ban coal power plants as an example of state and local government representing a populist interest in environmentalism that has always existed, in contrast to the way in which the Bush Administration has sought to prevent even the discussion of environmentally-motivated science and legislation.

This might be debatable, but I thought the argument was worth thinking about.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2006

Richard Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960, then ran again in 1968 and won. Ralph Nader has run several times, and there are many lesser candidates that have run over and over but never get noticed.
posted by dammitjim at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2006

You just know it is only a matter of time before somebody comes along and uses the term "fearmongering" in relation to Global Warming. I guess it's all about which side of "fearmongering" you happen to approve of. In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as "ozone man" and claimed, "This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we'll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American." That, my friends, is fearmongering.

Presidents who suppress science/scientists is what you should be afraid of.

posted by spock at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2006

He isn't hated like Hillary

Actually, I think he is, but not to the same degree. Hillary would drive otherwise apolitical folks to vote Republican though, even if Nosferatu was their nominee. With Gore, it's not quite so bad. But I'm with you generally--a year ago I never would have been thinking of supporting a Gore candidacy. It's starting to make a lot of sense.
posted by bardic at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2006

I think that his series of Move On speeches, much derided at the time, will be read and re-read decades from now. He stood on principle, and took a brave stand and defended it eloquently. I hope he runs in '08. The country needs him.

And no, I'm not working for the campaign.
posted by empath at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2006

Kirth: Did those guys actually run for president more than once?
posted by zeoslap at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2006

But then I remember his wife. And his daughters. If he could ditch them, I'd volunteer for his campaign in a second.

Is Tipper hated for anything other than a campaign to put 'mature content' stickers on music containing mature content? And what's the problem with his daughters?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2006

Well, he won once. I'd vote for him again.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2006

The trailer received three standing ovations at Sundance? What, did people sit down between them?
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2006

Kirth, DammitJim: Thanks for the info, then Gore has no excuse not to run. I've only been here a decade hence my unfamiliarity with candidates of yore :)
posted by zeoslap at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2006

sticky: They screened the movie three times, I assume.
posted by empath at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore / Dean '08?

:)
posted by anthill at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2006

I was pretty impressed by his Vanity Fair article - imagine, you could have had a President that eloquent! - but the whole "Crisis in chinese = danger + opportunity" thing turns out to be wrong...

So now we just have danger.
posted by Artw at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2006

I wonder if it's possible to inject the phrase Liemongering into the debate when talking about the Bush administration?

How to win a debate in American politics:
"He's [word] + mongering!"
posted by C.Batt at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2006

Tipper wasn't just about the sticker. She was about censorship, plain and simple. I'll defer to Frank Zappa one this one.

His daughters are less offensive, but one of them gets book deals based solely on her last name. Granted, at least his daughter is literate enough to write a book and have a career, unlike other first daughters of recent memory, but speaking as a Dem here's some unpaid advice to my party--if he runs, don't kiss Tipper again and don't prop up any children in front of cameras to tell the rest of us how "awesome" their dad is. This applies to Kerry as well, retroactively.
posted by bardic at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2006

Whether Gore will run again is debatable. But Hillary is unelectable. The question is, which is more effective: A Gore unfettered by running for political office or one who is running? That being said, I would think a Gore/Obama ticket would be pretty scary for Republicans.
posted by spock at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2006

He's fishmongering!
posted by rxrfrx at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

I really like Gore, but he's just so calm and monotone, it's tough to get excited about what he's saying even though he's intelligent and engaging.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2006

He won the popular vote in the 'hanging chad' election, at a time when GWB's popularity was far, far higher than it is now.

You realize that he can't be declared winner of an election because the Republicans count the votes now, right?
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2006

Also why in the hell are people still talking about Hillary Clinton? Except maybe out of some kind if desire to see the Democrats automatically lose an election or something? "Ban anything fun that i don't approve of" does not make for a good platform.
posted by Artw at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Obama

Be still my beating heart.
posted by empath at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2006

I really don't want to have another 'exciting' president thank you very much.
posted by zeoslap at 8:44 AM on April 19, 2006

Given the 2000 election result and the president poll numbers, it's hard to see how he could lose against Bush, absent some kind of October surprise.
posted by unSane at 10:31 AM CST on April 19

So Bush is running again in 2008? If so, I would hope that Gore would since the Constitution would prohibit Bush from being elected in 2008.

And October Surprise might come in 2008? So all those people who kept making that asinine prediction in 2004 were actually right, just off by 4 years?
posted by dios at 8:44 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Obama

That would be a nice ticket on so many levels.
posted by bardic at 8:45 AM on April 19, 2006

blue_beetle: If you have a few hours of downtime, watch his Move On speeches. He's got some fire in his belly.

The one halfway down this page in particular.
posted by empath at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore / Obama ?

OK.
posted by R. Mutt at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2006

Given the 2000 election result and the president poll numbers, it's hard to see how he could lose against Bush, absent some kind of October surprise.

I'm confused. Are you expecting Bush to run for a third term, or are you still in disbelief over the election six years ago?
posted by scottreynen at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore looks good in '08 if he decides to run. I think he is the strongest Democratic nominee that I have heard being mentioned. Of the early names, he is one that is most likely to get the vote of swing voters like me if he ditches some of his foreign policy reactionary positions. He is strong on almost all of the issues necessary to capture the White House except foreign policy, in my opinion.
posted by dios at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2006

I'm still not getting the appeal of Obama besides his charisma. Gore/Feingold would be a more attractive ticket IMHO.
posted by gyc at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2006

Hillary is going to get the '08 nomination and lose the election. Count on it. The party leadership - Dean or no - of the Democratic Party is too intent on committing suicide and too oblivious to the honest opinions of the average American voter for it to go any other way.
posted by Ryvar at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2006

He is strong on almost all of the issues necessary to capture the White House except foreign policy, in my opinion.

Yeah. That was GW's strong point, wasn't it?
posted by spock at 8:54 AM on April 19, 2006

(wispers ... Hillary / Zini )
posted by R. Mutt at 8:54 AM on April 19, 2006

I still think Hilary will win. The noise about how despised she is amplified by the right- and left-wing echo chambers. I'd prefer Gore, personally, but I don't think that'll happen.
posted by mullacc at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2006

gyc: As much as I love feingold, Gore needs somebody who is not an outspoken liberal to run with him. Feingold is way out in front on the impeachment thing. I think Feingold would be a fine presidential or vice-presidential candidate, but he would need somebody seen as a moderate like Mark Warner to balance the ticket.
posted by empath at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2006

Let's just go Gore/McCain, a little from column A and a little from column B
posted by poppo at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2006

or, McCain/Gore
posted by poppo at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2006

(Since a lot of you aren't familiar with my politics, please note that the above was said through gritted teeth - America desperately needs a liberal president.)
posted by Ryvar at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2006

mullacc/ryver: Everything I've seen about Hillary seems to point to the fact that the blogosphere (on the left and right) is way out of touch with the general populace on her. She is very popular and is raising shitloads of money. Now, whether the blogosphere is trailing or leading the general public remains to be seen.
posted by empath at 8:59 AM on April 19, 2006

The interesting thing for me is that an informal straw poll of Metafilter (safe to say, a liberal bastion) is overwhelmingly anti-Hillary.

On the flipside, I know numerous classical liberals, small-c conservatives and libertarians who think the idea of Hillary in office seems appealing (although how much of that is blocking out the HillaryCare debacle, I don't know.)

People are ready for change. Whether that change is to the opposite pole in terms of the Gore/Dean realm of the political spectrum remains to be seen.
posted by fet at 9:04 AM on April 19, 2006

Empath most of the conservatives I know back home, even the ones who never vote, will turn out to vote against Hilary. After the Hot Coffee thing even I would vote against her if the Republicans threw us someone half-decent (not Condi, of course).
posted by Ryvar at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2006

dios, which of Gore's foreign policy positions do you disagree with?
I'm not really familiar with his foreign policy at all, so I'm curious.
posted by atrazine at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2006

But is anyone ever going to be actively enthusiastic about Hialry? Probably not. Have no lessons been learned from Kerry? You don't run a stump of wood for president.
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2006

I really like Gore, but he's just so calm and monotone...

I'll take calm and monotone and well-read and inteligent over what we have now, anyday. Who gives a rats ass what his speaking style is? The man actually researches and understands the issues. Please run Al, we need you.
posted by octothorpe at 9:12 AM on April 19, 2006

I don't think 08' will be the climate election.. too much inertia, we are still in the early adopter phase of climate change, not enough people willing to vote on it. Most will pay it lip service, but will vote on (seemingly) more important issues such as defense and economy.
posted by stbalbach at 9:12 AM on April 19, 2006

To add to the tangent -- both Ronald Reagan and George Bush ran for president and lost before they were eventually elected.
posted by Heminator at 9:12 AM on April 19, 2006

I will attempt to summarize Gore's fp positions.

1> US should not be interventionist, attempt to achieve means through global consensus means.

2> Achieve peace through aid/diplomacy rather than military.

3> Normal trade relations/engagement with China, no stand on Taiwanese independance. Demand human rights gains in China.

The interesting part about Gore to me is that prior to the '00 elections, he presented himself as a vigorous interventionist (along the lines of Bosnia/Kosovo). I don't know how much of his current positioning is due to political machinations vs. true change of heart, or whether he sees the crap bogged down events in Yugoslavia as non-related to those in Iraq because of greater international sanction...
posted by fet at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2006

But is anyone ever going to be actively enthusiastic about Hialry?

Well, is there anyone on either side of the aisle to be enthusiastic about, really?

It'd be rather satisfying to have a political entity appear on the horizon with tangible policy ideas, but modern politics makes it incredibly dangerous to promise/clearly state anything.
posted by fet at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2006

Hunh.
Almost two months.
How 'bout that? :)
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2006

Warner/Gore versus Romney/McCain. You heard it here first.
posted by The White Hat at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2006

I could vote for Gore if he demonstrated for a prolonged period that he had not actually gone over the deep end. And he would also need to show some military and foreign policy backbone. In other words, return to his VP days. But he would have to start now for 2008.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2006

(mixed metaphor: gone OFF the deep end)
posted by ParisParamus at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Obama: Good, gets me excited in all the right ways

Gore/Richardson: MoFo's are unstoppable. Honestly, snagging New Mexico for sure plus locking up the hispanic vote for decades?
posted by slapshot57 at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2006

Well, is there anyone on either side of the aisle to be enthusiastic about, really?

When I went back home for my folks' annual Superbowl party the 35 or so fundamentalist evangelicals there all started gabbing excitedly about how Condi Rice was probably going to be the next President, after the camera focused on her in the stands.

Kinda strange.

Warner/Gore versus Romney/McCain.

Nice. That's a clear-cut choice for the former, as Romney is pure scum from a Democrat's point of view, and gay marriage was legalized on his watch from the Republican point of view.

I just don't see a Warner/Gore ticket, though. What about Warner/Clark? That would pick up more centrists/.mil votes, no?
posted by Ryvar at 9:31 AM on April 19, 2006

unless the icecaps start really melting> (think Hollywood disaster movie Waterworld) before the primaries in '08 I don't see the environment as a key issue

Presidential elections are about fear. fear of environmental apocalypse doesn't seem to have traction. certainly not as much as fear of bloodthirsty Murlim Iraqians terrahist hijackers.

it's all about fear.

1980: fear of the Iranian Negroes (kidnappers, terrahists, worship strange God)

1988: fear of Negro rapists and their hairy Greek enablers

1992: fear that the economy is going down the drain, hence one might as well vote for the philandering draft dodger

2000: fear of blow-job mad Democrats. it was not enough, but the SCOTUS delivered the election.

20004: OMFG TERRAR TERRA TERRAR. also, fear of the fags who want to marry you against your will and convert you to Judaism, or Islam, or something. and fear of Kerry who went to Vietnam but didn't bleed enough.

why should Americans be afraid of the lack of snow in Kilimanjaro (a faraway Negro mountain)? I say Hillary's going to get the nomination, and the funny thing is that the GOp won't even need Diebold like they needed them in the past.
posted by matteo at 9:34 AM on April 19, 2006

Sorry, my position on Gore is the same now as it was then. I don't eat fake butter and I don't vote for fake Republicans. If I'm gonna suffer the same pains (like pseudo-fascist censor monkeys like Lieberman) I'll at least get the benefits.

Jello may have forgotten Tipper but I haven't.
posted by phearlez at 9:35 AM on April 19, 2006

Not only did Nixon lose in 1960 and win in 1968, he lost in an extremely close election. Kennedy won by 112,827 votes, for 49.9% of the popular vote to Nixon's 49.6%. Gore won the popular vote by 543,816;. 48.4% to Bush's 47.9%.

His supporters felt his opponent cheated, and his performance in the debates probably cost him some votes. He "lost" the first debate on style-over-substance (most people who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon won; most people who watched it on TV thought Kennedy won) and the debate shaped people's perception of him for the rest of the campaign.

I could vote for Gore if he demonstrated for a prolonged period that he had not actually gone over the deep end.

Here are transcripts of speeches he's given and editorials he's written since 2000.

And October Surprise might come in 2008? So all those people who kept making that asinine prediction in 2004 were actually right, just off by 4 years?

Well, The New Repubic reported that the US pressured Pakistan to arrest or kill high-value terrorists before the election. And [tinfoil] Bush takes a six-point lead after new Bin Laden tape[/tinfoil]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2006

Phearlez:

You Are Part Of The Problem.
posted by empath at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Winfrey.

No, I'm serious.
posted by ColdChef at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2006

Much as it pains me that this whole debate is happening now, when human-caused climate change was accepted by the responsible scientific community 30 years ago, thank you Al Gore.
posted by slatternus at 9:45 AM on April 19, 2006

I'm still not getting the appeal of Obama besides his charisma.

He's African-American, and that's a huge voting block. If Condi runs, you can guarantee he'll be on the Dem ticket.
posted by mkultra at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2006

As much as it would please me to have "St. Winfrey" on the ticket, and it might actually be a winning idea, I'm not sure she has the rigor of judgement to be supportable (for me) as an elected official.

And I'm talking about her public support, endorsement and promotion of people like James Fry and Caesar Milan, both of whom are no one you would want to support if you look past their public persona.

It just makes me question her ability to think objectively and critically... she seems to base a lot on emotional decisions, and this is what causes a lot of the problems we're having in the Executive branch currently.
posted by illovich at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2006

He's African-American, and that's a huge voting block. If Condi runs, you can guarantee he'll be on the Dem ticket.

Excellent point. Thanks.

re: Winfrey - traditionally the VP role has been more of a PR role. Cheney is an aberration. Not only would Winfrey be perfect in that capacity (especially in a post-Governator world), but she'd probably enjoy it too much to realize she had no real influence.
posted by Ryvar at 10:08 AM on April 19, 2006

failed former presidential candidates never run a second time (is this even true?)

Many candidates run for the nomination more than once before they get it. Very few get the party nomination again if they lose. The classic case is William Jennings Bryan, who was the Democratic nominee in 1896, 1900, and 1908 (against McKinley twice, and then Taft). The Dems also had Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 (both against Ike). The Republicans had Thomas Dewey in 1944 and 1948 (against FDR and Truman), and of course Nixon. Before the Republicans there were the Whigs, who nominated William Henry Harrison twice.

Before the party system, when there was a wider slate of candidates running basically individually, people like Jefferson, Adams, Burr, and Henry Clay made multiple unsuccessful "runs".

Anyway, Gore. Since we're discussing videos and candidacies, here's a Spike Jonze-produced campaign video of Al Gore hanging out with his family that was never aired except privately at the 2000 DNC. I didn't find it revelatory as some did but I am surprised that they didn't use this in the campaign.

For 2008, Hillary is comfortably in the lead but short of a majority of Democrats supporting her nomination. Gore has recently surged in the polls that include him. I think it's hilarious that Republicans think of Hillary as some sort of classical bogeyman liberal, when other candidates are far more progressive. She triangulates like crazy (e.g. the Hot Coffee business) and it's her major weakness among Democrats, somewhat the way that Tipper and the PMRC are a weakness for Gore.

I think the blogs are out of touch, though; they support people like Feingold and Wesley Clark who probably don't have a ghost's chance.

Paris, we all know you only care about candidates who promise to kill more Arabs. Stop pretending otherwise; it's insulting.
posted by dhartung at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2006

On second thought, you'd need someone with HUGE prior foreign-policy chops to pair her with, and I don't think the Dems have anyone like that right now.
posted by Ryvar at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2006

Rudy/Condi vs. Warner/Clinton was my original thinking (not Sen. John Warner, but former Virginia. Gov. Mark Warner), but now I could see a Gore/Warner ticket.

If Hillary Clinton gets top billing on the Democratic ticket, I have a feeling that's going to backfire.
posted by emelenjr at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2006

Paris, we all know you only care about candidates who promise to kill more Arabs. Stop pretending otherwise; it's insulting.

That's pretty much been my impression.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2006

I could see Gore coming back as kind of a rejuvenated outsider, but he's said some loopy things in the past 8 years - remember his bearded phase?

Plus, he's got some flip-flops on his record that would make John Kerry blush.

And the thing that really bothers me about him these days with his global warming bent is that he blames it ALL on George W Bush, like this is some kind of new problem that started in 2001 and could be fixed in a few days. The fact is, most environmental problems are out of our hands in the USA. Have you ever been to a developing country? China, India, Indonesia...? Those places are dirty as fuck and telling them to clean up is like telling them to kill their economies.

Global warming is a reality and a problem, but I don't think we're stopping it anytime soon. Better to learn how to cope with it.
posted by b_thinky at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2006

Better to learn how to cope with it.

Well for starters, stop wasting your time rebuilding New Orleans. There's going to be at least one category 5 in the gulf every year from now on. Spend the money on seawalls for the rest of your coastal cities.
posted by slatternus at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2006

Plus, he's got some flip-flops on his record that would make John Kerry blush.

So does every politician in the history of the game. It's called "politics." The key difference is that Kerry couldn't talk like an honest human being to save his life; I trust Gore (to some degree) to defend such "flip-flops" by saying something straightforward like "I changed my mind because..." or "I voted against the bill because it had this unfavorable amendment..." instead of just changing the subject and giving some unreleated, prerehearsed blather to divert everyone's attention.
posted by rxrfrx at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2006

Phearlez: You Are Part Of The Problem.

Yep, it's definitely my fault the party has lost its way, sold out its core beliefs and I expect that anyone I vote for to represent me should, oh, REPRESENT ME.

A platform that has nothing in it but "we're not them" was tried in 2004. How'd that work out?
posted by phearlez at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2006

traditionally the VP role has been more of a PR role.

Were it not for that minor Constitutional detail regarding them actually assuming the presidency, in the event of a president's death.
posted by spock at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Winfrey.

No, I'm serious.

This needs to happen. Americans are much more liberal than they think, based on what gets play on Oprah's show, they just haven't figured it out yet.

Also she had the classiest way of helping Katrina victims of any public figure. That's a much biggger deal than giving away some cars or whateve rshe usually gets headlines for.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2006

I think Hillary Clinton is a terrible choice, she offers the worst of both worlds, failing to excite democrats and negatively exciting conservitives. The republicans would have to bungle grandly for her to win. And bungle in the campaign not just in governing. Really the democrats would have a hard time running anyone that was in the house or senate anytime between 2002-2004.

Gore is not a bad choice, there is vitriol towards him but not as much as with Clinton, and he can get people excited. Truth be told though he has too much baggage to be the best candidate.

Warner, I think is the best presidential candidate the democrats can field. Succesful ex buisnessman, good looking, well spoken, a governor with an excellent record, mercifully scandel and psuedo-scandel free. Running for president is not so much about being good as it is about avoiding the many ways of being bad and in this respect Warner is a great pick.

Clark is in many ways the ideal VP. He has matured (rapidly) into an authentically powerful and likable speaker. His position as an ex-republican who grew tired of the awfulness of the republican party offers the democrats one of their best chances to court this growing segment. His somewhat contreversial exit from his position will be much less of a liability now that military disatisfaction and politics are so much more visible to the American people.

Obamama is good but christ let's not blow our collective loads so fucking soon. Democrats should save him until the republicans run a black candidate. Let him run for governer and get out of the senate, he's still young, he can stand to hold off for a long while if he get's out of the senate.
posted by I Foody at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Winfrey.

No, I'm serious.

I know you are and that's what's frightening. America loves a star.
posted by 327.ca at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2006

The problem here is that if Gore tries to run, Team Hillary will DESTROY him. It will be brutal to a degree in which Gore will be unable to do any private work on environmental issues.

He won't have Bill Clinton's backing (though he sort of never asked for it in 2000, but still). He won't have half the people who supported him earlier because they're all going to be in Hillary's pocket. He won't have Dean because I would assume the chair of the DNC has to remain somewhat neutral in directly endorsing a nominee. And he won't have the "moderate" DLC because Joe Lieberman will likely turn them away from him.

If he's planning on running, he needs to indicate he's doing it about.... six months ago. Believe her abilty to win the general or not (I believe she can), the Hillary primary juggernaut is not exactly slowing down.

And it's a damn shame because if you're among the many that think Hillary Clinton for Prez = Doomsday, Gore is the likely salvation.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 10:59 AM on April 19, 2006

Can anyone explain to be what Hillary has going for her, aside from name recognition? I don't really know that much about her positions except for on Iraq, and there I am just not impressed.
posted by miss tea

Miss tea,

Neither am I impressed.
I hope that I will not have to vote for anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq.
To answer your question though, I'm thinking perhaps people consider it a back door third term for Bill? Also, the extremely lowered bar of expectations for a president is impacting people's thought processes on this matter. We can do much better than Hillary. If it's because of the gender, then how about Slaughter?
posted by nofundy at 10:59 AM on April 19, 2006

I hope that I will not have to vote for anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq.

Betcha a dollar that the vast majority of the nominees will be pro-war, "just not the way they did it", and the eventual dem candidate definitely will be.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2006

I'd actually take that bet right now. 6 months ago, probably not, but now, sure.
posted by rxrfrx at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2006

I'm all for Gore running if he can lose the publicists and managers. That's what killed it for him last time.

Just say what you want to say. Not what the polls or sketches on SNL are telling you to say. People can always spot a pandering phony, and that's Hillary's biggest weak spot. In this movie, he actually looks like he gives a shit. More of that, please.
posted by fungible at 11:11 AM on April 19, 2006

The Democrats running Hillary in 2008 is the kind of thing that makes Karl Rove squeal like a little schoolgirl and rub his porcine hands together in perverse glee.
posted by keswick at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2006

Bill Richardson. Richardson is the way to go. Hispanic vote. Arizona, and probably New Mexico. Good shot at Nevada and Florida. A Richardson candidacy would crush the Republicans.

This really looks like a no-brainer to me. It's gotta be a governor: that leaves Richardson and Warner as the only reasonable choices. The Southwest and the Hispanic votes are the future, though. Warner is more of a Clinton/Gore strategy, pandering to the old South.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:16 AM on April 19, 2006

(Of course, I meant "New Mexico, and probably Arizona" up there.)
posted by mr_roboto at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2006

Given the fact that the last three Democrat presidents were southerners, I'd recommend pandering to the South.
posted by keswick at 11:20 AM on April 19, 2006

All this is talk of whether Gore should run is assuming there will be an '08 presidential election.

I'm pretty sure that after the next 9-11 Bush will suspend elections claiming that only he can "see us through" and that "now is not a time for change in leadership."

It's called "emergency third term" and it'll be considered quite reasonable and prudent by a slim majority of Americans.
posted by wfrgms at 11:20 AM on April 19, 2006

All this is talk of whether Gore should run is assuming there will be an '08 presidential election.
I'm pretty sure that after the next 9-11 Bush will suspend elections claiming that only he can "see us through" and that "now is not a time for change in leadership."
posted by wfrgms at 1:20 PM CST on April 19

Do you really believe nonsense like this? Or is this just a rhetorical point?
posted by dios at 11:22 AM on April 19, 2006

scottreynen: I'm confused. Are you expecting Bush to run for a third term, or are you still in disbelief over the election six years ago?

Wrong Bush. Start thinking Jeb - his term as Florida governor ends next January, so he has a full year to fund-raise, and he inherits GWB's existing infrastructure.

Why is nobody (on preview - mr_roboto beats me to it) mentioning current/former governors? The last former senator to become prez was Nixon, and only after having been Ike's VP (the last sitting senator elected president was JFK). Since then, we've seen Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Dubya (okay, Dukakis bucks the trend).
posted by hangashore at 11:23 AM on April 19, 2006

Do you really believe nonsense like this? Or is this just a rhetorical point?

Are you actually interested in whether or not wfrgms as an individual actually considers such a thing possible? Or are those rhetorical questions?
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:26 AM on April 19, 2006

keswick writes "Given the fact that the last three Democrat presidents were southerners, I'd recommend pandering to the South."

Take a look at the red states on this map, and read this article, and tell me that a strategy that appeals to the Southwest and to Latinos doesn't make sense for the long-term future of the Democratic Party.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:26 AM on April 19, 2006

Jesus christ, there is no way that republicans will suspend elections in 2008, that's really dumb. People hate Bush, the republican establishment is likely eager to move on to somone else.
posted by I Foody at 11:27 AM on April 19, 2006

The more I hear Hillary has the nomination locked up

The Democrats liked losing to Bush so much that they want to lose to Unnamed Republican in 2008, huh?

I've always liked Gore. Every time I hear/read a speech of his, I wish he was president right now.

*sigh*
posted by eustacescrubb at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2006

Richardson definitely deserves some attention. The "southern strategy" for the Dems would be better understood as a southwest one--not just now, but for the future. NM, NV, AZ, and CO mean a lot more now than they did ten years ago. But I still have him pegged as VP material at best. Honestly, he doesn't look presidential enough IMO. Smart guy though.
posted by bardic at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2006

wfrgms: Well, 2008 is when we'll know if we still have a democracy or not, that's for sure. I fully believe that Bush WOULD do it, if he thought he could get away with it. I'd put the odds of him trying it somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000-1 against. Even if we do go to war with Iran.
posted by empath at 11:44 AM on April 19, 2006

Do you really believe nonsense like this? Or is this just a rhetorical point?
posted by dios at 11:22 AM PST on April 19

It's probably one of those gray areas you're so fond of. Will he do it? Probably not. Would he if he thought he could? Hell yes.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:55 AM on April 19, 2006

I'd like Gore over Clinton but damn, either way it looks like we will get four more years of corruption and pandering.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2006

If you are inclined to think that the unjustly awarded election of 2000 led to one of the worst Presidencies of this or any other era, it is not easy to look at Al Gore. He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years (and of what might still happen in the coming two). Contrary to Ralph Nader’s credo that there was no real difference between the major parties, it is close to inconceivable that the country and the world would not be in far better shape had Gore been allowed to assume the office that a plurality of voters wished him to have. One can imagine him as an intelligent and decent President, capable of making serious decisions and explaining them in the language of a confident adult. Imagining that alternative history is hard to bear, which is why Gore always has the courtesy, in his many speeches, and at the start of “An Inconvenient Truth,” to deflect that discomfort with a joke: “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I used to be the next President of the United States.”

This paragraph is near-to heartbreaking for me to read.

From the New Yorker piece.
posted by Danf at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2006

Well, to be fair, everyone thought Bush was just going to be a banal evil, not batshit-insane evil.
posted by keswick at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2006

There isn't a week that goes by that at some point I don't weep inside for what might have been had bush v gore gone the other way.
posted by empath at 12:21 PM on April 19, 2006

> When I went back home for my folks' annual Superbowl party the 35 or so fundamentalist evangelicals
> there all started gabbing excitedly about how Condi Rice was probably going to be the next President,
> after the camera focused on her in the stands.
>
> Kinda strange.

Listening, matteo?

posted by jfuller at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2006

corruption and pandering.

Corruption and pandering we can deal with. We have a lot of experience dealing with corrupt and pandering politicians.
posted by empath at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2006

What defeated Gore was the necessity (as he saw it) of distancing himself from the Clinton presidency. Which pretty much everyone agrees was extremely foolish, because nobody associated him with the evil blowjob, which in any event it wouldn't have kept Clinton himself out of a third term had that option been available. Not running on the record of his own administration left him very wobbly, and he looked it every day of the campaign.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2006

I feel sorry for Gore. He must wake up every day, see the morning paper and just hang his head and weep "What the FUCK!".

Perhaps he rationalizes the 2000 & 2004 elections as the result of an huge population of altered people going out high and voting. In 2000 the result of partying too hard because of the dot com bust. 2004 the result of attempting to drown the guilt from 2000 in booze. Maybe?

Anyway. Gore is a real smart guy. So smart I think he knows he can't run 2008. If he DOES run them maybe he ain't so smart after all.

I think with this film is Gore trying to matter. He want's to do something to make a difference. And using the entertainment medium seems to get people motivated whereas stump speeches and policy wonking makes Bob Sixpack's eyes glaze over.
posted by tkchrist at 12:26 PM on April 19, 2006

He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years (and of what might still happen in the coming two).

I'm sure that Osama bin Laden and his crew wouldn't have attacked NYC if Gore had won the election. I'm sure the nice Wahhabist schools wouldn't be preaching death to the West if Al Gore was sitting in the oval office. I'm sure those nice people in the Taliban in Afganistan would have been good trade partners. And I'm sure that global warming wouldn't have occurred. And I'm sure North Korea would have been all land of flowers. And I'm sure Iran wouldn't have tried to develop a nuclear weapon. I'm sure Saddam would have peacefully passed control of his country to his two lovely sons. I'm sure Katrina wouldn't have hit this country if it knew Gore was in the White House.

The paragraphed is just myopic scape-goating. The world is in interesting times, and it is a defense mechanism to blame them all on Bush as if none of the major events of the last 6 years would have happened. The ONLY thing that even could be argued that would be different is Iraq. But that is not a given. Who knows what Gore would have done about Iraq. There was plenty popular support and circumstances that may have forced his hand. It may have been handled differently, or it may not have occurred at all. We could be sitting here with Saddam about to acquire nukes to pass on to his nuts sons. We don't know what the alternative on Iraq would have looked like.

But to sit here and say that we would have been in the land of milk and honey for the last 6 years if Gore would have won is painfully short-sighted.

Though some things would have been different and perhaps better, a lot of the other significant things were not dependent on who sat in the Oval Office.
posted by dios at 12:26 PM on April 19, 2006

If the Dems nominate Hillary, maybe it will split the party. I would like the non-Hillary splinter if it actually stood up to the Republicans and wanted to work towards something like debt reduction (and they could peel off a lot of R's that way I'd imagine).

Maybe only a horrific defeat like that will cause them to change enough so as to not suck completely? I don't know.

The thing that makes me sad is it will set back women in politics for ages if she runs. It can only end in tears.
posted by beth at 12:30 PM on April 19, 2006

I'm sure that Osama bin Laden and his crew wouldn't have attacked NYC if Gore had won the election.
posted by eustacescrubb at 12:34 PM on April 19, 2006

The world is in interesting times, and it is a defense mechanism to blame them all on Bush as if none of the major events of the last 6 years would have happened.

Yeah but it sure would be nice to be facing all our problems with: 1) some of the goodwill towards our nation still intact, 2) a reasonable fiscal situation, 3) the Bill of Rights intact, and lest we forget 4) Valerie Plame and all associated personnel whose covers were blown with her would still be working on issues of proliferation of WMD in the 'stans.

And if Gore had sat there like a deer in headlights after learning the second tower had been hit, y'all would have flayed him alive with plastic picnicware. But seriously, he would have handled it better. Pretty much anyone would have.
posted by beth at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2006

I think Gore would make a fantastic president, but I hear far too many people say "You think Gore could have handled September eleventh" implying he was too much of a wuss. Not that Bush did a good job.
posted by drezdn at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2006

This paragraph is near-to heartbreaking for me to read.

Me too.
posted by docpops at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2006

dios writes "Who knows what Gore would have done about Iraq."

C'mon. The entire Bush administration had a hard-on for Saddam when they came into office. There's no way Gore would have invaded Iraq. Maybe he would have devoted sufficient resources to building a stable Afghanistan, or capturing Osama bin Laden, but why the hell would he have invaded Iraq? The "crisis" was manufactured from the ground up by forces in the Bush administration.

If Gore had been president, there would have been no invasion of Iraq: the American military would have remained flexible and responsive, not tied down in an ongoing conflict with no end in sight; we would have maintained our credibility to our allies and our appearance of military capability and competence to our enemies; and we'd have hundreds of billions of dollars in the government coffers that our now lost forever.

Milk and motherfucking honey.

Iraq is the biggest foreign policy mistake since Vietnam. You can bank on that.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2006

This is all too much, I feel obligated to hyperlink 'Al Gore', by Monkey Bowl. The 'Al Gore lives on my street'.. thing.. here.

I feel for whoever gets elected to office in 2008, no matter the party. There is such a stinking mess to clean up..
posted by cavalier at 12:44 PM on April 19, 2006

Another difference without an invasion of Iraq: much less geopolitical influence for Iran. It's like they didn't even bother to think that particular implication through. And now we have another crisis. Incompetents.

Also, it's entirely possible that Gore would have focused some defense resources on anti-terrorism during his first year in office, instead of pouring everything into a missile defense shield (remember that?).
posted by mr_roboto at 12:44 PM on April 19, 2006

Dios, GHW Bush established the "Regime Change" policy in Iraq. Clinton continued the policy but not up to the point of invasion. Everything Gore has said before 9/11 and since seems to indicate that he, while still endorsing "Regime Change", would not have invaded either. And it has been this "War of Choice" - this illegal invasion of a soverien nation (and the Bush administrations compulsive disregard of international treaties and agreements), a nation we know know for a FACT posed little threat to the US, that has hamstrung our nation so badly. Bush may have crippled us.

I'd say the Iraq war issue is a significant difference of potential outcomes.
posted by tkchrist at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2006

I'd actually take that bet right now.

And I'd be more than happy to lose it.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:52 PM on April 19, 2006

What about Feingold/Obama, or Obama/Feingold, with Gore as the secretary of the interior?

Just askin'.
posted by davejay at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2006

Who knows what Gore would have done about Iraq.

Idiotic. Gore wouldn't have forced lousy intelligence about imminent threats out of the CIA. Iraq wouldn't have been an issue in the first place.
posted by interrobang at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2006

he, while still endorsing "Regime Change", would not have invaded either.

I admitted that. That may be true. We don't for sure. If Gore would have been in the position to make the call, he may have behaved differently then his comments as a civillian. He may have engaged Iraq in some manner or not at all. We don't know. We also don't the know the consequence of what might have occurred if Saddam would have been ignored. We don't know. At this point it is all hindsight second-guessing. There is plenty of evidence that Iraq was going to be an issue somehow. How Gore would have dealt with that issue is another story. It is sheer speculation what Iraq would have looked like under a Gore presidency.

But again, if Gore was president, would Katrina not hit New Orleans? Would the corporate scandals have not occurred? Would bird flu not have existed? Would global warming not have occurred? Would Islamists not hate the West? 9/11 would have occurred, but would Gore have reacted differently? If so, how? Would have not attacked Afghanistan? Attacked faster? Would Kim Jong Il been a nice guy with no nuke ambitions? Would Ahmadinejad like the Jewish state and not want to get a nuke and wipe it off the face of the planet?

Things occurred independent of who was in the White House.

I will conceded that things would be different to a degree, especially in Iraq. But it is speculative and revisionist to the point of wishful thinking to think that the major events of the Bush presidency wouldn't have occurred if Gore was president. All it is is partisan scapegoating.
posted by dios at 1:00 PM on April 19, 2006

Iraq wouldn't have been an issue in the first place.
posted by interrobang at 2:58 PM CST on April 19

This is asinine hindsight with blinders on. Iraq was a problem before Bush got into the White House. Clinton engaged it on several occasions. The inspectors got kicked out. The sanctions regime wasn't working. Something was going to come of it. How Gore would have acted differently is something that is speculative, but he would have to do something about it. How Iraq would have looked now is something else that would be grossly speculative.

Different is one thing. Vastly better is another thing. How do we know he wouldn't have continued the sanctions regime and Iraq be worse off? We don't know.

But what of all the other things? Iraq may have been different. But most of the major things of the last 6 years was not directly dependent on who was sitting in the Oval Office.
posted by dios at 1:06 PM on April 19, 2006

dios, do you see reduced spending as a key issue?

Not snarking - honestly curious.
posted by rush at 1:06 PM on April 19, 2006

Yeah. Definitely.
posted by dios at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2006

dios, that's lame, even by your standards. For starters, 9/11 was not some random act of violence. The US had intelligence that ObL was up to something, and that jet liners would probably be involved. Would Gore have prevented 9/11? No one can say for certain, but you can be damn sure he wouldn't have ignored so many red flags.

As for the rest of your argument, that's hardly a ringing endorsement of Bush--"Shit happens to every president!" True, but some act responsibly like adults, with support from their allies, and in the national interest. Bush doesn't. And thanks for yet another strawman--no one blames Bush for Katrina, but for utterly failing to take any substantive action in its (literal) wake. Even now he's more willing to spend money on Iraqi infrastructure than on Louisiana and Mississippi's--that's simply contrary to the national interest.
posted by bardic at 1:10 PM on April 19, 2006

Maybe when Gore was handed a memo about an attack that was about to happen to his country that outlined specific details of how it was going to be undertaken he might have, I don't know, cancelled his vacation?

Perhaps Gore would have gone through with Clinton's plans to solve the al-Qaeda problem before al-Qaeda brought the problem to downtown Manhattan?

Perhaps Gore wouldn't have detained prisoners illegally, ignored the Kyoto agreement, alientated most of Europe, ratcheted up an attack on civil rights, listened to the Army Corps of Engineers when they said the levees were weak, appointed two lasting legacies of spite to the supreme court, tried to pawn off port security to a hostile nation, cut taxes, further impoverished the already poverty-stricken, ignored the health care system, and wasted a year trying to overhaul social security?

Notice, I haven't mentioned the war yet.

I'm sorry, Dios. You just don't think, do you? Or, when you do think, it's only of yourself. Is that it?
posted by jon_kill at 1:11 PM on April 19, 2006

it is speculative and revisionist to the point of wishful thinking to think that the major events of the Bush presidency wouldn't have occurred if Gore was president. All it is is partisan scapegoating.

You'd have a point if anybody were actually claiming that. I doth think you protesteth too much about revisionism, here. I get the impression most folks are addressing the (different) ways in which a Gore white house would react to the events that (granting for the sake of argument) the Bushies did not invite upon themselves. No one's arguing that President Gore would have flown Air Force One to Louisiana and singlehandedly stopped Katrina. But I can understand why some would suspect that a Gore white house would have handled the natural disaster (and its aftermath) in a more competent (and ideally more compassionate) manner.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:12 PM on April 19, 2006

She [hillary] is very popular and is raising shitloads of money.
*In best J&#333b voice...* "COMEON!!!"
Dean quote: "I've made a huge mistake."
posted by uni verse at 1:13 PM on April 19, 2006

It's interesting how almost this entire thread is about presidential politics and not the issue raised by the film. My question is: what the hell are we going to DO about this gigantic world-changing problem? Electing Gore isn't going to solve it.
posted by muppetboy at 1:16 PM on April 19, 2006

dios writes "I will conceded that things would be different to a degree, especially in Iraq. But it is speculative and revisionist to the point of wishful thinking to think that the major events of the Bush presidency wouldn't have occurred if Gore was president. "

The single central, defining event of the Bush presidency was the invasion of Iraq. It is at the very center of current US foreign policy. So yeah, everything would be the same. Except for the most important thing.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:17 PM on April 19, 2006

But again, if Gore was president, would Katrina not hit New Orleans?

You know, if you had taken two minutes to click the links in the FPP you might have noticed one of the key elements of the film is how environmental policies over the last decade has had devestating effects on the global climate. Global warming is widely discussed as being related to the increase in hurricanes and other changes in weather severity.

So if anything I'm glad people who actually give a fuck about the issue beyond being smug on a message board are realizing it's more than a straw man.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2006

, anyone?
posted by joe lisboa at 1:20 PM on April 19, 2006

muppetboy writes "My question is: what the hell are we going to DO about this gigantic world-changing problem?"

Nuclear power.

I shit you not. The solution is nuclear power, on a massive scale, combined with hydrogen-powered automobiles and container trucks.

The nuclear waste issue absolutely pales in comparisons to the risks we're taking upon ourselves in burning fossil fuels. Plus, we should reprocess the waste (like they do in the rest of the world) to minimize it's volume and radioactivity.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:20 PM on April 19, 2006

And yeah, tons of money into researching renewables and fusion but for now: old-school fission power plants. The once and future future.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Winfrey

Oprah as V.P.?

She'd never take the demotion.
posted by Bonzai at 1:25 PM on April 19, 2006

The single central, defining event of the Bush presidency was the invasion of Iraq.

No. It was the 9/11 attacks. I suppose this is an important difference of emphasis. Prior to 9/11 Bush was an isolationist, and so was the country. 9/11 was the defining event. It forced the President and the country to realize that in the global world, there is a growing hatred being fomented in Islamic countries that has been festering for decades. I have never understood the desire for people on the left to diminish the importance of that event. It created a major national re-thinking of global involvement specifically in the Middle East. It was the precondition for Iraq.
posted by dios at 1:25 PM on April 19, 2006

Intellegent, honest people can disagree on this.

We should make a bet and see who's right in like 25 years, though.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:27 PM on April 19, 2006

mr_roboto is right. There isn't a single aspect of our civilization that doesn't absolutely require energy in quantities it would be hopelessly impractical to produce by renewable means in the immediately forseeable future. Arguably there are better ways to live with a smaller energy footprint, but we're not going to choose them; both because we're very lazy and because entrenched energy interests aren't really going to let us choose them. Nuclear is about the only future that doesn't have a mini-dark-age between it and ourselves. I'm personally not sanguine about it, but in most respects it's better for the environment and there are incomparably better generating plant designs than TMI or Chernobyl.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:27 PM on April 19, 2006

Nuclear power on it;s own will not do the job.

We need to add renewables to that, increase efficiency, and (*gasp!*) maybe reduce energy usage.
posted by Artw at 1:28 PM on April 19, 2006

dios: 9/11 was the defining event. It forced the President and the country to realize that in the global world, there is a growing hatred being fomented in Islamic countries that has been festering for decades.

The left was certainly well aware of this. However there was (and still is) a profound skepticism given our previous failures of empire building by proxy as to its effectiveness for dealing with this problem.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:29 PM on April 19, 2006

Prior to 9/11 Bush was an isolationist

I don't think so. Look at the staff he appointed.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:31 PM on April 19, 2006

like the proverbial broken clock, even dios manages to be right at least once -- we just don't know what would have happened had Gore been allowed to serve as President (note the careful wording)

but:

the ignored (by Bush) intelligence warnings on OBL in the summer of 2001: Gore, wonk that he is, spent 8 years as VP reading tons of memos and, like, paying attention to shit)

the sad, cowardly performance on 9-11 (the pet goat, Air Force One flying to the moon hoping the Martians don't attack): Gore actually went to Vietnam, didn't ask his powerful daddy to find him a comfy National Guard spot

Katrina: Gore wouldn't have named Bush's buddy as FEMA chief. a heck of a job, really.
and maybe, just maybe, Gore wouldn't have strummed a guitar while poor blacks were drowning like rats. maybe he would have given a shit, unlike the other guy. my evidence for this hypothesis? almost anybody else in the world would have given a shit.

whining that a hurricane would have happened anyway is, just, well, childish and stupidly partisan, especially for someone who occasionally like to pretend to be the nonpartisan adult

also, Iraq isn't solely a foreign policy issue. there's that small detail of the trillion bucks burnt by your buddies, dios. if you concede that maybe Gore would not have invaded, then you have to concede America would hava saved a trillion dollars.

not to mention, no Iraq means no Abu Ghraib. if/when America is hit again on a 9/11 scale, maybe the perpetrators will leave a video behind like suicide bombers sometiems do. and, you know, maybe they'll mention how much Abu Ghraib motivated them to kill a lot of people. blowback and all that. but Republicans don't understand "blowback" after all those years arming Saddam against the Iranians, arming Osama against the Russkis and propping up those sweet friendly Saudis
posted by matteo at 1:32 PM on April 19, 2006

Nuclear power, electric cars.
posted by empath at 1:34 PM on April 19, 2006

dios you just went from "I will conceded that things would be different to a degree, especially in Iraq. But it is speculative and revisionist to the point of wishful thinking to think that the major events of the Bush presidency wouldn't have occurred if Gore was president" to "9/11 was the defining event."

This is ridiculous; you refuse to settle on a basis of your arguement. You shifted immediately from insisting that the events- plural- of Bush administration differed in no major way from a Gore presidencey, then when challenged with the countless instances in which Gore's policies differed from Bush, shifted to claiming 9/11 is all that mattered, and that there would have been no difference if Gore were president- a concept that defies and accusation of "speculative" you could levy on any other person.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:35 PM on April 19, 2006

This is ridiculous; you refuse to settle on a basis of your arguement. You shifted immediately from insisting that the events- plural- of Bush administration differed in no major way from a Gore presidencey, then when challenged with the countless instances in which Gore's policies differed from Bush, shifted to claiming 9/11 is all that mattered, and that there would have been no difference if Gore were president- a concept that defies and accusation of "speculative" you could levy on any other person.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:35 PM CST on April 19

You are finding a contradiction that isn't there.

Bush's presidency would have been different without 9/11. That was the defining moment of his presidency, in my opinion. It would have been the defining moment of Gore's as well. Bush was swept up into a historical time period that changed his views from the time he came in. He ran as an isolationist. But events outside of his control changed that (9/11)... the same even that Gore would have had to face.

There isn't a contradiction between these points:

9/11 would have occurred under Bush and Gore, and the reaction would have been the same (the completely insipid question of whether Gore would have been reading a book or jumped on the first F-14 to fight himself or something is just pettiness). That event dictated Afghanistan, as it would have for Gore as well. Iran and North Korea nukes would have occurred under either. Most of the major domestic crises would have occurred under both. The only issue that may have been different was Iraq. And though it may have been different, we can't be sure how the decision to act or not would have differed. And we certainly can't define how different Iraq would have looked.

So, to bring this back to the original point, though there would have been differences, it is complete bullshit on stilts to suggest (as the original comment did that I responded to) how the major events of the last 6 years wouldn't have happened if Gore was president.
posted by dios at 1:42 PM on April 19, 2006

I'm sure that X wouldn't have Y

It doesn't matter if every single thing would have happened the same, it's the response and lack of competency that matters.

Put aside that it's unknowable if the Madrid bombings would have happened w/o the Iraq invasion or even if Gore would run a better intelligence community and prevented 9/11. The last six years have been mis-step after mis-step with a side helping of crony-ism along the way and that's where the tragedy lies.

I don't have a lot of love for Bush's ideology but my grump with him has always been how much he's costing us for so little return.
posted by phearlez at 1:43 PM on April 19, 2006

dios writes "Iran and North Korea nukes would have occurred under either."

It's debatable whether Ahmadinejad could have won election in a climate in which Iraq had not been invaded by the United States. He's the guy who's really made an issue of the Iranian nukes. A real dangerous fuck.

I fact, I think there's a strong argument to be made that the current belligerent nationalism coming out of Iran is a direct response to the "axis of evil" speech and the invasion of Iraq.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:47 PM on April 19, 2006

I just went back and found this to be interesting.
posted by dios at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2006

Nuclear power on it's own will not do the job.

Yes. The problem with nuclear power is it isn't very portable -- you need large containment systems and vast cooling capacity. The only form of transportation it works well with is ships (who float on large bodies of coolant) and electric based rail, since you don't have to carry batteries on the train.

Electric cars aren't currently workable as the US uses cars, and are completely unworkable for over-the-road shipping. The right answer is to change that, but the capital cost of that makes the capital costs of the reactors themselves pale by comparison. To go to all electric trasportation will require a complete rebuild of the entire transportation network. This network will be slower, since part and parcel of "all electric" is "no airplanes." You have to assume that aircraft will retain petroleum fuel, since nothing else has anywhere near the energy density to get them to do what they do now.

So -- we'd have to rebuild the cities. Shorthaul electric cars to get you to the nearby store or the local train station. Trains to haul passengers long distance and freight, all electrified -- a massive change and expansion of the US rail network. Electric powerpoints almost everywhere, since the problem of truly fast charging hasn't been solved. You can fill a car with a stunning amount of energy in less than two minutes with a gas nozzle. Getting the same energy in as electric current would require voltages that are truly scary and conductor of enormous diameter.

The effort required will be staggering. I do not think we will have the will to even begin until it is far too late.
posted by eriko at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2006

So, to bring this back to the original point, though there would have been differences, it is complete bullshit on stilts to suggest (as the original comment did that I responded to) how the major events of the last 6 years wouldn't have happened if Gore was president.

You just did it again. You're quickly declaring 9/11 as "the event" and then declaring all other "major" events related to that. That's the real bullshit. As matteo and others already noted, you don't just get to say Katrina response, the Supreme Court nominees, and an infinite number of differences in domestic and foreign policies aren't "major" just because you think Gore and Bush would have handled 9/11 the same way. Not only is that complete speculative horseshit, it makes no sense whatsoever.

The irony of this is how you refuse to admit that Bush is a collasal failure, perhaps one of the worst Presidents in American history, and yet you're desperate to suggest that Bush's massive incompetence is clearly not his fault but some kind of historic inevitabilty. What, exactly, is your ultimate idea here- that Gore would have had no choice but to neglect thousands of Katrina victims, cripple the budget, and get thousands of American troops killed too? Or are all of those just not "major?"
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2006

Question for everyone who says Bush is "perhaps" the worst president in U.S. history: Who would you say was worse? I really can't think of anyone who such a massive failure on all fronts.
posted by keswick at 1:58 PM on April 19, 2006

The problem with nuclear power is it isn't very portable

No, but hydrogen produced by nuclear-generated electric is, with only comparatively minor chemical and engineering problems.
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2006

I've been critical of Bush on several points.

I'm just critical here of the bullshit revisionism that everything would have been better with Gore.

Perhaps if you would try to read my comments in the manner they are offered instead of trying to read them as an apologia for Bush, you wouldn't have such a hard time grasping them.

Did Bush do some stupid things in response to Katrina? Sure. Would Gore's reaction to Katrina had been different? Maybe, if not probably. Would Gore's reaction have been different in any way that would have made the whole thing NOT a catastrophe? Of course not. The city was gone. People were going to die. It is a natural disaster. If Gore was president, he hopefully wouldn't have made the same mistakes as Bush in responding to it, but it is bullshit to suggest that his response would have obviated the tragedy of it.

And that is the problem. You can't read my position as anything other than an apologia for Bush when that isn't my point. My point is that the major events of the last 6 years that people so often bitch about with Bush wouldn't have been appreciably different under Gore. Does that excuse Bush? Of course not. But the implication being suggested is that we would be in the land of milk and honey if Gore was president and that is just hogwash.
posted by dios at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2006

Here's a brief summary of dios' argument for the ADD crowd.

Apples = oranges. Furthermore, when I say 2+2=5, I really mean 2+2=22.
posted by keswick at 2:04 PM on April 19, 2006

Metafilter: We don't know.

However, dios, what we do know is that the UN inspectors were not kicked out. THAT IS A LIE.

You should know better than that. I'm getting tired of correcting you, but every time that I see you (or, come to that, any poster) making a bald faced statement which is untrue, I'll call you on it.

Please stop.
posted by dash_slot- at 2:04 PM on April 19, 2006

So, no. Especially not in America. As Patrick Henry so eloquently said "Give me convenience, or give me death.

Huh? Dude, you're thinking of that Dead Kenedys album. Patrick Henry said "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death".
posted by SweetJesus at 2:05 PM on April 19, 2006

If he hasn't resigned by 2008, I predict that Cheney will try for the presidency. That man has enough hubris to think he could win.
posted by dial-tone at 2:05 PM on April 19, 2006

And to make sure people don't lose sight of the point and make stupid assumptions about what I am saying, refer back to the comment I was addressing:

...He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years (and of what might still happen in the coming two). Contrary to Ralph Nader’s credo that there was no real difference between the major parties, it is close to inconceivable that the country and the world would not be in far better shape had Gore been allowed to assume the office that a plurality of voters wished him to have... Imagining that alternative history is hard to bear.”

This paragraph is near-to heartbreaking for me to read.
posted by Danf at 2:03 PM CST on April 19

The idea is here that Gore has no presidential prospects because people look at him and realize that things would have been great if he was president, and that heartache is just too much for people to get over to decide to vote for him. That is just nonsense.
posted by dios at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2006

My point is that the major events of the last 6 years that people so often bitch about with Bush wouldn't have been appreciably different under Gore

But you have earlier stated that the question of things being better under Gore was debatable, now you are saying they certainly wouldn't be.

How is that position any different to the "milk and honey" claims you dismiss?
posted by Reggie Knoble at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2006

dios writes "9/11 was the defining event. It forced the President and the country to realize that in the global world, there is a growing hatred being fomented in Islamic countries that has been festering for decades. "

You know, there's something that bothers me about this. In early 2001, I remembered the original bombing of the WTC, back in '93, and the embassy bombings in '98, and I had read excerpts from the Hart/Rudman report, and I realized that terrorism from radical Islamists was a major threat to this country. And the President of the United States did not?

I find this deeply disconcerting.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:14 PM on April 19, 2006

> And the President of the United States did not?

Most of the folks you'll encounter right here do not believe it even now.
posted by jfuller at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2006

My point is that the major events of the last 6 years that people so often bitch about with Bush wouldn't have been appreciably different under Gore

Gore wouldn't have cut taxes and then started an ill-conceived, badly managed, treasury breaking war with Iraq I would wager. So right, except for not bankrupting us, not ruining the military for generations to come, not destroying international good will toward us and not killing thousands and thousands of innocent Americans and Iraqis there'd be no difference between them.
posted by octothorpe at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2006

jfuller writes "Most of the folks you'll encounter right here do not believe it even now."

Not nearly as disconcerting.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:34 PM on April 19, 2006

I'm going to repeat myself for the sake of clarity: 9/11 was not inevitable. There were warning signs. There were discussions of the possibility that a)ObL was going to strike again sooner rather than later and b)commercial jetliners might be used.

To claim that another president would have idly sat by and allowed 9/11 to happen is sheer, undiluted idiocy. To allow 9/11 to happen, and then to go on and promote the people like Condoleezza Rice (NSA director at the time--National Security Director) will be an eternal mark against any positive legacy Bush II might have ever had.

We don't know for certain whether, for example, Gore would have prevented all four jets from being hijacked, and three of them hitting their targets. But Bush likes to remind us how his principle job is to protect the American people. By his own standard, he and his administration are an abject failure. No one was fired. No one was even reprimanded.

Even Reagan and Bush I, two presidents who IMO did more harm to the country than good, tried to surround themselves with competent, knowledgeable people when it came to the issue of national security. Bush II didn't, and the evidence is clear--the horrible outcomes (directly: 3,000 dead, indirectly: Vietnam redux and a blown multi-trillion dollar budget) even moreso.
posted by bardic at 2:36 PM on April 19, 2006

No, but hydrogen produced by nuclear-generated electric is, with only comparatively minor chemical and engineering problems.

Two words: Energy density. Oil has it. Powerlines have it, which is why electric trains work so well. Nuclear reactors on a ship blow them both away, in terms of density -- a US CVN carries tons of fuel oil -- for her escorts.

Hydrogen? Lousy energy density, compared to the above. Unlike the above, it's a room temp gas that likes to escape into space. Liquid Hydrogen isn't much better, is hard to make, and as a cryogen, is very hard to handle. Indeed, density is why many rockets use RP/LOX, instead of LH2/LOX, for lower stages -- the extra implus LH2 would provide is great, but the vastly larger tanks require to carry it means that when you count structure and drag, you end up losing in the end. Few boosters are all-up LH2, most that don't use RP use long burning stages combined with solids for initial impulse. Density is why.

As a merely compressed gas -- a much easier thing to deal with that liquid hydrogen -- the energy density is almost a joke. Propane is better.

And, once again, we have the fact that we have no infrastructure at all. Even if you do use gaseous H2 as the actual fuel, the only way to transport rational amounts of it to the filling stations, and store enough to sell, will be as LH2. Shipping a few million gallons a week around the entire country in tanker trucks powered by diesel is hard enough. A pipeline? That'll be tough to do -- for one thing, if the insulation isn't enough, the LH2 will be gone before it reaches the end.

So, you can't get economy of scale -- you'll need thousands of small plants, not a few big ones. And still, you're going to be fighting to get enough fuel into a car to make it useful.

Remember: if it doesn't go as far as a battery powered electric, it's far easier to just use electrics.
posted by eriko at 2:36 PM on April 19, 2006

eriko- what's the status of that H2-dissolved-in-a-solid thing I saw on Scientific American Frontiers a few years ago?
posted by rxrfrx at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2006

dios: "My point is that the major events of the last 6 years that people so often bitch about with Bush wouldn't have been appreciably different under Gore"

dios, TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES LATER: "But the implication being suggested is that we would be in the land of milk and honey if Gore was president and that is just hogwash."

Can you please SETTLE on the imaginary argument someone made you want to disprove?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2006

keswick writes "Question for everyone who says Bush is 'perhaps' the worst president in U.S. history: Who would you say was worse? I really can't think of anyone who such a massive failure on all fronts."

Andrew Jackson. Then again, I have some baggage I'm carrying around that belong to a certain few of my ancestors.

However, W is solidly #2 on the list.
posted by Fezboy! at 3:01 PM on April 19, 2006

9/11 would have occurred under Bush and Gore

The government claimed that they would have prevented the September 11 attacks if Moussaoui hadn't lied to the FBI. (It wasn't enough that the FBI agent who arrested him sent a memo to at least 50 people at FBI headquarters three weeks before the attacks saying that Moussaoui wanted to hijack an airplane and commit a terrorist act.)

Question for everyone who says Bush is "perhaps" the worst president in U.S. history: Who would you say was worse? I really can't think of anyone who such a massive failure on all fronts.

James K. Polk ("The Napoleon of the Stump") and William McKinley took us to war under false pretenses. Ulysses S. Grant had Crédit Mobilier and the Whiskey Ring and Warren G. Harding had Teapot Dome. President Bush's zesty combination of corruption and malfeasance is only rivaled by Nixon's combo of Watergate and Cambodia.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:04 PM on April 19, 2006

I'm just critical here of the bullshit revisionism that everything would have been better with Gore.

There is no "bullshit" revisionism going on here. You're just putting words into other's keyboards. Stating that Gore would have handled the events of the past six years perhaps better than Bush has, is not anywhere near saying that Katrina wouldn't have happened, or 9/11 wouldn't have happened.

Anyone with any sense of intellectual honesty and good will in participatory discussion would know this. That you pretend you don't is astounding, though conversely, not surprising. Blatant jackassery, clearly.

This sort of nonsense, coupled with profit, and a resistance to change are large factors in the battle to discredit global warming.

Question for everyone who says Bush is "perhaps" the worst president in U.S. history: Who would you say was worse? I really can't think of anyone who such a massive failure on all fronts.

Interesting opinions here.
posted by juiceCake at 3:19 PM on April 19, 2006

The inspectors got kicked out.

Excuse me? Are you referring to the inspectors who were told that America was about to start bombing, so they'd better leave?

Dios, if you want to be taken seriously as a non-troll, don't spout this horseshit.
posted by beth at 3:33 PM on April 19, 2006

Yay! More dios fact checkers in da house!
posted by dash_slot- at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2006

what's the status of that H2-dissolved-in-a-solid thing

It lowers the total energy storage of the volume, while rasing the weight per volume. IOW, it makes the problem worse.

The advantages of encapsulation is that it at least tries to make hydrogen fuel transportable economically, but in tests, batteries had much higher energy density.
posted by eriko at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2006

Gore/Clinton for '08? Any thoughts?
posted by Nquire at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2006

I'm just critical here of the bullshit revisionism that everything would have been better with Gore.

Who are you arguing with buddy? I'm fairly sure nobody here said "everything" would be better under Gore.

For instance I think my knee would have still gone out in 2004. Though I'm open to any input from a lawyer if it's possible to blame Bush for a worn out ACL. And I think that Tom Cruise would have still proven to be an annoying closeted cocksucker. Perhaps under the Gore Administration's more accepting climate Cruise may have felt safer to come out? But I doubt it.

Dios what COUNTS is this Iraq war. That is ALL that counts right now. Because by any metric - accepting body counts - we are losing the peace (even Rumsfeld has given it a "D-" grade) and the frigg'n thing is spiraling out of control. The region, this VITAL region, is destabilizing rapidly and we are elevating and entrenching our foes to a strategic place where only MORE war is likely - not less.

Your idea that Saddam would "still be a problem" is a non-sequitor. Saddam wasn't a problem in the first place. He was contained. He was no strategic threat. He was just another tin-pot serial killer in epaulets.

The only "problem" is that Saddam was squatting on some sah-weeeet prime realestate. A seperate issue from the man. And that problem could have been dealt with with out invading and we all know it.
posted by tkchrist at 4:52 PM on April 19, 2006

Maybe he meant the UNSCOM inspectors that were spying for the CIA. Except they weren't kicked out, either. UNSCOM executive chairman Richard Butler withdrew the inspectors after Peter Burleigh, the American representative to the United Nations, told Butler that the US was going to strike Iraq in Operation Desert Fox.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2006

I'll say it: Everything would have better under Gore. Everything in the whole fucking universe, projected backward and forward through time. Sure, my pet still would have died, but I could have comforted myself by being able to say, well, at least George W Fucking Bush isn't our motherfucking president. And that would have significantly lessened the pain of the event.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2006

I'll say it: Everything would have better under Gore. Sure, my pet still would have died...

Wait. WAIT! Your pet died? Oh. Well that's the last straw. Don't you see?! BUSH KILLED YOUR PET! I am overcome with sadness... AND OUTRAGE!
posted by tkchrist at 6:01 PM on April 19, 2006

Well, I'd make the case that my pet died as a result of being stranded in New Orleans for three months after Hurricane Katrina, except that somehow he managed to survive that, only to die a few weeks after coming to Minneapolis.

But that wasn't even really my point, was it?
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:14 PM on April 19, 2006

I've never responded to an illogical Dios argument before now, but this is too much. Nobody is saying that no bad things would have happened (Katrina) or continued to exist (Nuke threats in North Korea/Iran) in the world if Gore had been in the oval office.

The question isn't whether fastballs would be sent across the plate. The question is what kind of guy Americans would like to have at the plate. The guy we've got up there now is batting .000 and this wasn't what the home team fans paid their money to see.
posted by spock at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2006

I'll say it: everything would have been better under Dios.

Or even Quonsar, for that matter.
posted by mkultra at 7:22 PM on April 19, 2006

As far as bad presidents go, has anybody squandered more? He started off with the biggest budget surplus in history and (after 9/11) he had the support/sympathy of most of the world. Anybody checked the balance in either of those accounts lately?
posted by spock at 8:07 PM on April 19, 2006

dios's link above about gore/bush on iraq is indeed interesting, & seems to pretty clearly contradict the "he was an isolationist/9-11 changed everything" line, if not explicitly.

I think 9-11 has been mythologized more under bush than it would have been under gore. It was terrible but it didn't have to be seen as "the day the world changed". Why didn't everything change at the oklahoma city bombing? or columbine? or waco? or whatever other national tragedy you want to point out... This was not a completely new enemy, and it was not a particularly brilliant or well-funded one. They got us when we weren't looking, and it was tragic & painful, especially for those in NY & DC, but it didn't have to define "America" from here on out.

And whether bush can be "blamed" for all the bad stuff that happened on his watch: I think it's really important to remember that some of our most beloved presidents were those who led us during times of crisis. Right after 9-11, bush had sky high ratings just because he was the president and people needed to rally around someone. If he'd handled things differently, perhaps he could have been remembered as a momentous figure. I do think gore would have had a different approach - more attempt to be inclusive and bring everyone together, yadda yadda. may seem secondary, but it ends up being crucial. Even the most complex decisions in politics still end up being influenced by personal interchanges and feelings. it isn't, and can't be, math. it's about human dynamics on a large scale. it's a social science.
posted by mdn at 8:21 PM on April 19, 2006

Did anyone notice the nuke at the end of that clip - eh?
posted by RufusW at 8:39 PM on April 19, 2006

Dios,

"But to sit here and say that we would have been in the land of milk and honey for the last 6 years if Gore would have won is painfully short-sighted.

"Though some things would have been different and perhaps better, a lot of the other significant things were not dependent on who sat in the Oval Office."

Perhaps the attacks of 9/11/2001 wouldn't have been successful if a more competent Administration were in power? Our confidence would not have been shaken. We wouldn't have needed revenge against the Afghans. The President blames the recession on 9/11--maybe that wouldn't have happened. The deficit would not be as huge and we certainly wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. How many soldiers, Iraqis, and Afghans have died from the recent wars?

It's hard to say really, and maybe a Gore Administration would not have stopped 9/11. But, you know what? Considering the evidence we've seen surrounding the attacks and the Administation's utter incompetence, such a proposition seems extraordinary plausible to me.
posted by JKevinKing at 9:32 PM on April 19, 2006

Dios,

"9/11 would have occurred under Bush and Gore"

I think you may be assuming too much. But even if you're right, I still think Gore would have done better. I think he would have invaded Afghanistan, because that was the obvious thing to do. Most Democrats still pain to note that they supported that war. He certainly would not have scaled back civil liberties to the extent Bush did, and he definitely would not have allowed Americans to torture under his watch.

And that's just the beginning ... the budget would be in much better shape, the response to Katrina ... blablabla

DAMN! No wonder some of us are suffering from outrage fatigue!!! This Administration has been a complete disaster! A more complete divergence between campaign brilliance and governing ineptitude may never be seen again!
posted by JKevinKing at 9:49 PM on April 19, 2006

No voices for Gore/Edwards? I thought a lot of people liked Edwards (but not Kerry).

Gore's the only presidential candidate in the two-party system I've ever voted for. And I'm not at all surprised that the Spike Jonze video "surfaced" at a time when a lot of people are talking about 2008.

I don't know who any of the other names are. Warner? Richardson? I know of Obama, but not his politics/platform.

I hope Badnarik runs again in '08 on the Libertarian ticket. Very smart dude.
posted by Eideteker at 9:53 PM on April 19, 2006

(although how much of that is blocking out the HillaryCare debacle, I don't know.)

This is a bit off the main topic, but . . .

Right now the U.S. of A. has all the disadvantages of "socialized medicine" without any of the advantages.

I came to this revelation after my Mom called to tell me about her ordeal in the emergency room of a major medical center in a major American city.

She spent the night in a bare room on a cot (yes, a cot, sort of like a war zone or maybe some kind of a 3rd world country).

Didn't see either a doctor or a nurse for hours on end.

Never did get a diagnosis and still doesn't have one now, some weeks later.

(Low quality care is a typical criticism of "socialized medicine".)

Meanwhile it is typical for people to wait several months to be able to get in to see certain specialists, even in cases where quick action would be very desirable.

(Long waiting times are a typical criticism of "socialized medicine".)

And that is for people who actually HAVE insurance.

And I don't even want to start counting the number of my friends and acquaintances who have no coverage.

This, of course, includes a number of people who had good coverage and were gainfully employed until some kind of medical disaster struck, eventually leading to loss of livelihood and then inevitably to loss of insurance coverage.

("Socialized medicine" covers everybody, even people with health problems.)

Point is, like her or not, maybe "HillaryCare" wasn't as dumb an idea as it was made out to be.

The alternative sure ain't worth bragging about.
posted by flug at 10:02 PM on April 19, 2006

Although the thread is about global warming, I think it's hard for any of us to address the solutions. One thing I suggest is seeing the latest edition of Nova, "Dimming The Sun". I only caught the tail end of it, but it was both fascinating and greatly disturbing. Many of the visuals seem to be straight out of "An Inconvenient Truth". I'm grabbing it off of BitTorrent as we speak.

As far as candidates go, Gore/Richardson would be excellent. Gore is strong and credible throughout most of the country, and brings some additional pull in the South. Not enough to win states there in an hotly contested race against a Southern Republican perhaps, but he'd do well against McCain. Richardson would be the secret ingredient Gore would need to push him over the top in Arizona, Nevada, and, most importantly, in Florida.

If the Democrats can win either Ohio or Florida, then they win entire election. With Richardson, this would be much easier to do.

That said, if Rice enters the race, then it may be a good idea to put up a female VP candidate. Rice is arguably more of a threat to eat into female votes than to eat into the Black vote.
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:54 PM on April 19, 2006

watching dios trying to desperately move the goalposts back and forth and then screeching like some crazed ferret when people call him out on it is one of the very few pleasures of his presence among us. it doesn't matter how many users blow up his fallacies, inconsistencies and plain lies -- he barges ahead. there's some kind of dumb, shameful greatness in that.

Most of the folks you'll encounter right here do not believe it even now

heh, the usual cowardly smear (I bet you loved it when InstaPundit before Iraq Attaq wrote that Annan wanted "peace in our time"). I know it hurts that we were the ones reading the difficult parts of the newspaper before 9-11, you know, those un-American pages that mention faraway places where strange-looking people speak some sort of non-English languages. I know it hurts that your buddies, blissfully certain that the brown peoples all over the world just loved America because of her fine popular entertainment and tasty meat sandwiches, had to discover the furriner affairs section only after 9-11. but then, some of us were indeed paying attention and, shit, 9-11 didn't seem such an incomprehensible event. still doesn't.

*cue "why do they hate us" rightwinger unsincere whine*
posted by matteo at 1:01 AM on April 20, 2006

if Rice enters the race, then it may be a good idea to put up a female VP candidate

maybe the Democrats will get lucky and the anti-abortion Justices will spike the ball, and will take away significant abortion rights before '08. then, the GOP can run Zombie Martha Washington or the ghost of Mother Teresa, it won't matter.
posted by matteo at 1:05 AM on April 20, 2006

It's pretty sad for the Democrats when the main qualifications of potential candidates is ethnicity. I want Obama - he's BLACK! I want Richardson - he's LATINO!
posted by b_thinky at 2:07 AM on April 20, 2006

It's pretty sad for the Republicans when the main qualifications of potential candidates is how much they hate ethnicities. I want Tancredo- he'll burn all the Mexicans alive! I want Allen- he'll pave New Orleans like a parking lot!
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:20 AM on April 20, 2006

b_thinky, the Republican politcal operation is run by Karl f'ing Rove. Please spare us your platitudes regarding ethnicity. There's a reason a large majority of blacks and hispanics don't vote Republican and never will. Get over yourself.
posted by bardic at 7:40 AM on April 20, 2006

Jews tend not to vote Republican either, and I think the neocon movement has proven my thesis that Jews who are Republicans are bughouse lockdown Thorazine-needing crazy motherfuckers.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:23 AM on April 20, 2006

b_thinky writes "It's pretty sad for the Democrats when the main qualifications of potential candidates is ethnicity. I want Obama - he's BLACK! I want Richardson - he's LATINO!"

Have you been paying any attention at all to American politics for the past 40 years? Race and ethnicity are central considerations.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:29 AM on April 20, 2006

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