Soccer Dad

What if the 2000 election had been decided by voters who decided not to vote for al gore?

Phoenix Woman blogging at Firedog Lake has prepared an alternate history of the past 6 years assuming that Gore had the presidency handed to him by Supreme Cournt affirming the outrageous decision of Florida's Supreme Court to recount only jurisdictions that favored Al Gore.

One of the conceits of the anti-Bush Left is that Al Gore was robbed because not enough attention was paid to "hanging chads." The assumption is that a chad that hadn't been fully detached in Gore's favor, should be counted in his favor regardless. Obviously these people are have a gift of prescience that we ordinary mortals are denied. For only they could assume that the voter intended to vote for Al Gore but didn't have the strength to register his/her vote properly. It couldn't mean that someone intended to vote for Gore and then changed his/her mind.

(Never mind that nearly every possible scenario investigated by news organizations after the fact showed that Bush still won Florida under the other permutations ordered by Florida's Supreme Court.)

The Sundries Shack is dismissive

The core of her “history”? Al Gore prevents 9/11 by being tough and carrying on the incredible foreign policies of his predecessor Bill…
I can’t do it. I can’t even finish the sentence with a straight face. I can’t imagine what amazing self-restraint it must have taken not to write herself into a steamy love scene with International Super Stud Al Gore. I’d fisk it, but that would be like beating a lame baby seal in it’s sleep. Some things are simply too cruel.

Right Wing Nuthouse took special exception to the fictional hstory's account of Saddam's alternate life: he would assist the Gore led war on Osama bin Laden and help defeat and kill Osama. Not only that, but the United States would then work with Uday and Qusay to ensure a smooth transition to secular democracy without civil war after their father would pass from the scene. Unlike me he has no words to describe this "... new entry in the Idiot Sweepstakes."

What strikes me is that Phoenix Woman would have it that Richard Clarke and the rest of President Clinton's brave anti-terror warriors would have successfull carried their anti-terror fight into a Gore administration. The problem is, as Richard Miniter has written that Clarke was a lone voice of seriousness in the Clinton administration.

In January 2000, al Qaeda tried and failed to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans off Yemen. (Their boat sank before they could reach their target.) But in October 2000, an al Qaeda bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39.

When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

Clarke who later turned his ire toward the Bush administration - either because of pride after being passed up for a promotion he felt he deserved or because he opposed the war in Iraq - was pretty much alone in realizing the threat of Bin Laden during the Clinton adminstration. To treat him as a pivotal member of the effective Clinton team is simply dishonest.

The "timeline since 2001" is a fun exercise for those who wish to see Dick Cheney arrested for corruption and jailed or executed, but as a reading of the past and projection of the future it is, shall we say, imperfect.

Blogdigger tags: Fractured History, President Gore, Leftist Fantasy, Election 2000.