Our Floundering Father
July 1, 2004
Al Gore is always saying the right things, but accusing the wrong people. If he could only turn his pudgy index finger 180 degrees and stick it in his nose, he would find the perpetrator of the ills that ail him. Democracy Itself Is In Grave Danger, a disjoint and misdirected diatribe delivered to the American Constitution Society, is Gore’s latest projection of his own lack of substance (weenie factor).
As if Gore hasn’t already amply proved his impotence on the issue of terrorism with five unanswered attacks under the one-eye-blind watch of his former administration. Oh...that’s right...they bombed a Sudanese aspirin factory and a naked patch of Afghan desert. Pardon me...the bombing of the aspirin factory coincided with Monica’s return to the grand jury during Clinton's impeachment problems. You remember...” I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”.
How apropos in the midst of yet another one of Gore’s pedestrian “lectures” accusing the Bush administration of “misleading” and “lying” to the American people...when you consider that Gore’s own communications director once warned Al that, ''Your main pitfall is exaggeration.'' I wonder if our former maestro of the internet is the pot or the kettle. But, more of that in a bit.
It’s interesting that Gore chose the intent of our Founding Fathers as scenery for his “analysis” of the Bush administration’s transgressions. I was not aware that he was an Enlightenment Period scholar. Especially since the Boston Globe reported in September of 2000 that “Gore's undergraduate transcript from Harvard is riddled with C's”.
In a stirring testament to his status as a privileged buffoon insulated from the reality of terrorism, Gore is “...convinced that our founders would counsel us today that the greatest challenge facing our republic is not terrorism but how we react to terrorism....” He was also once convinced that he authored the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) legislation... the EITC became law in 1975, a year before Gore was elected to Congress.
But in his customary need to expound on subjects of which he knows very little, Gore jumps right to his buddy Thomas Jefferson, “What would Thomas Jefferson think of the curious and discredited argument from our Justice Department ...that any law or treaty which attempts to constrain his (the President’s) treatment of prisoners in time of war is itself a violation of the constitution our founders put together.”
Very specifically, in his First Inaugural Address, Jefferson was undeviating in his belief that America should not have “entangling alliances” with any foreign nation. Had Gore flushed the Twinkies from his brain, he might have better asked what Jefferson would think about the United States encumbering its national security with obligations to the U.N. or NGO’s. And, by the way, the last time I looked al Qaeda was not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. But that’s nothing to lose your head over.
When Gore starts dancing with James Madison, he gives living proof of long held suspicions...that privileged children, like Teddy and he, can not only get into places like Harvard without ever opening a book, but they also graduate. For a person so consistently nuanced with the truth, Gore demonstrates very little understanding of nuance when he remarks “How long would it take James Madison to dispose of our current president's recent claim, in Department of Justice legal opinions, that he is no longer subject to the rule of law so long as he is acting in his role as commander in chief.”
First and foremost, the President never said he was above the rule of law. Gore is mistaking him for Benon Sevan, head of the UN’s Oil-For-Food program. The President is relying upon legal opinions, from his justice department, based on precedent and case law concerning a very narrow area of war time presidential powers. It’s not exactly like supporting a president trying to circumvent a grand jury and a splooged blue dress...is it Mr. Gore!
Madison was president during the War of 1812, which his critics dubbed "Mr. Madison's War." Madison was also subjected to the same volume of weenie criticism over that war as the President is in today’s conflict. With regard to our enemies in 1812, Madison pointed out that “The war has been waged on our part...in a spirit of liberality which was never surpassed. How little has been the effect of this example on the conduct of the enemy!” Maybe Human Rights Watch can pass this message on to al-Zarqawi!
Curiously, Madison faced a similar challenge in that war as Bush does today. In his Second Inaugural Address, Madison refers to the “meaningful relationship” between the British and Indians, “They (British) have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the hatchet and the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have let loose the savages armed with these cruel instruments; have allured them into their service, and carried them to battle by their sides, eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished and to finish the work of torture and death on maimed and defenseless captives.” No doubt Gore would say this was not a “collaborative” relationship.
Gore’s ignorance of historical fact reaches Big Mac proportions when he accuses the administration of engaging “in unprecedented secrecy”. What would Gore now think of Madison who agreed that the Constitutional Convention would be held “in secret” because “Had these men been subject to the scrutiny of the press & to continuous instruction from their respective state governments, the convention would have collapsed in short order.” Unlike Gore, Madison knew how to get a job done.
In fact, Madison’s personal notes of these proceedings are the most complete record of the Convention. But, Madison understood discretion and “Because of the great public controversy & the freedom of exchange of the floor debate (owing to secrecy), he swore not to make these journals public until most of the people involved had passed away.”
I will concede that Gore is absolutely correct on one of his statements, “Whenever a chief executive spends prodigious amounts of energy convincing people of lies, he damages the fabric of democracy, and the belief in the fundamental integrity of our self-government.” Too bad this didn’t dawn on him while he was Vice President.
Or, as Jim Dyke phrased it, “Al Gore served as Vice President of this country for eight years. During that time, Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States five times and terrorists killed US citizens on at least four different occasions including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole.” But Gore was too busy posing for pictures with mega donor, drug cartel member Jorge Cabrera and calling Clinton "one of our greatest presidents" at the 12/19/98 White House post-impeachment Pep Rally. So much for liars!
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