Biden on Al Gore: "This man was elected president of the United States of America,"

[deminks]

http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=biden+al+gore&p1=%5bNewsVertical+SortByDate%3d%221%22%5d&FORM=NWRFSH

(snip)

Biden also made remarks about former Vice President Al Gore, who served in the House with Markey and was also at the fundraiser.

"This man was elected president of the United States of America," Biden said, talking about Gore's presidential election defeat in 2000. "No, no, no. He was elected president of the United States of America. But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision in my view was made, he did the right thing for the nation."

(end snip)

Some Biden truth-tellin' for this Wednesday morning.

That oughta get the wingers stirred.

[sibelian]

1. Finally.

C'mon, guys... start shootin'. What are they gonna do that they ain't doin' already?

[SugarShack]

2. Bush did not win either one of his elections. And they need to mandate adequate audits for all

ELETRONICS USED IN V O T I N G ! ! !

[midnight]

58. I agree...

[sunwyn]

68. And that is why I have never been able to refer to "W" as anything other then Gov. Bush

[pangaia]

73. I can't even do that.

I call him Shrub, or The Village Idiot, or.... you don't want to hear the rest of them.

[timdog44]

74. Or the

idiot that some village is missing.

[reformist2]

3. That is how it will be written in the history books.

[jimlup]

4. Except that Joe is wrong about one thing...

I think Gore should have fought with everything including the kitchen sink for the presidency in '00 as we saw that what happened under W was certainly not "for the good of the nation."

[global1]

5. I Agree With You....

"for the good of the nation" Gore and the Dems should have fought this and rightfully be the President.

Look what happened to the nation under Bush. That was not good.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I think you're right.

[bigwillq]

8. I agree.

[RT Atlanta]

11. That point stood out too - stepping aside wasnt "for the good of the nation"

As history has revealed.

[1-Old-Man]

13. I think you are right now and I thought exactly what you are saying 13 years ago.

[Zen Democrat]

17. I think he would have had Lieberman not screwed up w/ the military vote.

I heard Gore was livid when he saw Lieberman on TV making the statement. It undercut him terribly. That's why I think Joe Lieberman was working for Brand X during his entire career.

[maddiemom]

33. Lieberman was a big mistake on Gore's part. I neverunderstood what he was

supposed to add to the ticket...and he hadn't even began to show his true colors at that time. He was sort of a cypher to many voters. and once more prominent, pretty reprhensible.

[Kokonoe]

47. No doubt, Lie berman stood with Bush.

[timdog44]

75. Lieberman has always

been brand X. And his patriotic fervor is for Israel not America. He should be deported.

[jwirr]

21. Agreed.

[Whisp]

23. yep. Didn't even put up any fuss at all. Just laid down and gave up. n/t

[unblock]

28. fight... how exactly? once the supremos handed down their infamous decision, what was to be done?

he could have cried and moaned and complained and whined, but there was simply no viable mechanism left to change the outcome.

sure, many of us, myself included, would have found it much more satisfying if he and others had insisted that they had actually won, and also taking the opportunity to rail against the horrendous court decision and so on.

but nothing short of a revolution could have changed the outcome.

keep in mind that republicans still had other avenues even absent the supreme court decision. the republican-controlled state of florida was poised to deem the election disputed with no clear outcome and withhold their electors, denying gore a clear majority and throwing the election into the republican-controlled house of representatives, who would then have selected shrub anyway.

gore had the principles, the votes, and the truth on his side, but shrub how the power to steal the white house, and there wasn't really anything gore could have done to stop it.

[maddiemom]

36. I read a number of sources at the time claiming the Bush people were prepared

for a reverse decision, and had big guns ready to roll. No worries about "the good of the Nation."

[unblock]

38. they're never worried about the good of the nation. only the good of the rich.

who can easily move to another nation if need be.

[NYC Liberal]

29. Gore DID fight like hell. What did you want him to do, stage a coup?

Blame the Supreme Court that ruled against him. And the Dem senators who refused to back the challenge.

[NYtoBush-Drop Dead]

59. The felonious five...

should have been tied and quartered and dragged through the town square. I say we do it with the ones who are still alive...

[Rain Mcloud]

63. The day they sold America to the corporations

[link:

|

[Enthusiast]

66. Right on! Great clip.

The grand betrayal.

They did not steal the election with good intentions. Just look what has happened to the nation as a result.

[lastlib]

32. True--but, realistically, there was nowhere else to go......

Twas, perhaps, a greater tragedy than Watergate for undermining faith in our electoral system.

[Zoeisright]

42. What could he have done after the fucking Supreme Court ruled against him?

Started a revolution? Refused to concede? What???

[dumbcat]

44. We could have taken it to the streets

Look what regular citizens are doing in Turkey. They may bring down their government. Bush may have given up when he saw how the electorate was against him.

[KittyWampus]

48. with what infrastructure? Clinton left him with withered infrastructure & Gore didn't have people

in place like Obama did.

[grasswire]

51. I will always despair over that

Gore capitulated in order to preserve his future electability -- he fell for the calls to "be a statesman" and rise above.

He should have forced them to rip the victory from his hands to the bitter end, and thereby laid down a signal for history that a coup had happened.

[eridani]

62. ^^^this^^^ n/t

[Babel_17]

7. I think a lot of us were waiting for a call-up

When Bush had his people stage the Brooks Brothers riot I thought we'd hear a call to hit the streets, but no.

No offense to Al Gore, or the top people of our party, or then President Clinton, but I think they were all too much part of the establishment, too unwilling to risk Wall Street taking a dive, to signal to the voters to demand their votes be counted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

It boggles my mind. That wikipedia link doesn't have all the details. You have to google.

Maybe Gore did the right thing. Maybe the mistake was not being prepared to deal with that level of perfidy and criminality. Once the moment passed ...

[freshwest]

16. I'd say the church school buses that parked outside the vp residence and threatened his family did

make him realize the breed of animal he was dealing with. They stood outside and yelled obscenities and said to 'get out of Cheney's house.' They were under seige. I saw this on TV, just as I watched the crowd pelt the motorcade when Shrub was sworn in.

I think they saw the writing on the wall and that there was going to be a lot of violence. The election of 2000 was a coup, pure and simple. It was nearly twenty years in the making and done with fanatical, religious zeal. By people who did not and still do not respect the process, that Democrats must respect for equality.

The Democrats from top to bottom believed that the vote mattered and the media would tell the truth about the exit polls. They did, if you recall, with Rather calling Florida for Gore. Jack Welch or whoever the bastid was (I only snarl this up in my brain as I have tried to forget it or stroke out), called him the news room to tell him it was wrong, after Roger Ailes and Fox said otherwise. But Rather was not wrong he was overridden.

It was the first retraction I ever heard on an exit poll in over 40 years of watching presidential politics. Tom Delay, George and Jeb exchanged records and names of Texas prisoners to match the same names in Florida months before the election. Road blocks were set up to keep blacks from voting.

The Bushes knew they had a lock on Texas already, but not Florida despite all their fraud. Tom Delay got the Congressional staffers on planes and paid their airfare, hotels and rooms to stage the Brooks Brothers riot. This was a clear violation of federal statute, for federal employee to intervene in an election. That's what they did.


The security for the vote counters were intimidated by an apparent mob of angry Floridians demanding they stop doing their job. It was brown shirt fascism at its best. There was a level of criminality going on that no one expected.

The Democrats or at least the black caucus did try to not certify the election. By that time, the media and mobs were roaming around. Across the country rightwingers were calling for gunning Democrats down in the streets of America.

I did not agree with Gore deciding to step back. But I think he was afraid for his family. After all, the right wingers have been killing people for years and there were some technical reasons to let the GOP have it. The electoral college, and the HoR, is not responsive to direct democracy, not in practice nor numbers.

The fact that O'Connor has admitted her mistake in giving the deciding vote in 2000 at the USSC, and that Biden is saying this, may indicate a turnaround in American awareness. We had to invite UN election observers in this country for 2012. While the right controls the media and keeps on pushing their lies every day, there are some facts making their way out to make people think.

I would love a Biden presidency. The rightwingers would meet as big as nightmare with him as they have with Obama. They are almost clones.

[Babel_17]

26. Great post

The guy ordering his people to call it for Bush "Now!" was some kind of cousin of Bush, IIRC.

[JNelson6563]

43. Well said!

Bravo!

Julie

[dumbcat]

45. That was good. nt

nt

[Enthusiast]

67. That is one excellent post right there.

"It was brown shirt fascism at its best."

It was precisely brown shirt fascism. Just look what happened to the nation as a result of that "election".

IMO, everything that has happened since, from 911 to the financial collapse, was planned before that day in 2,000. I mean EVERYTHING. And it continues.

[timdog44]

76. Great post.

I wish my memory was a sharp. By the time I write a post and have had to look up everything I suspect, the thread has disappeared.
I hate to say I was around when elections no longer mattered in America. It is truly a shameful time.

[northoftheborder]

78. Good summary of pertinent facts

[malthaussen]

9. Yeah, good of the nation, right.

Have to differ with you on that one, Mr Biden. And ya know what? It sounds awfully like an abused wife staying with her husband "for the sake of the children."

I think it is flawed thinking to equate a lie with the "good" of anything, but them I'm an idealistic civilian, and not a politician.

-- Mal

[UTUSN]

10. 2000 is how/why we coalesced here & it has dominated the past 12 yrs. n/t

[ReRe]

19. Exactly! Let's not forget this point! n/t

[lpbk2713]

12. And then along came Katerine Harris, James Baker and the Supremes.

While most of the rest of America sat back and watched while sitting on their thumbs.

[Laelth]

14. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth

[William769]

15. I have always like Vice President Biden.

[emulatorloo]

18. Thanks Joe. I suppose this will be called a Gaffe. Or more like media will bury it

[ananda]

20. Bush stole both 2000 and 2004.

Criminally and fraudulently.

[limpyhobbler]

22. DU should have an Al Gore forum - Oh wait, it does!

here->
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1101

[mopinko]

24. i think that they, like obama, know what they are dealing with.

i think they honestly, and probably correctly, felt that blood would run in the streets if the bushies were opposed. right or wrong. i honestly believe they all thought that.

[freshwest]

41. In my extremely blue state at the time the Pubbies were calling for exactly that. And that was even

Last edited Wed Jun 12, 2013, 07:46 PM - Edit history (1)

long before the Iraq War with the Goebbels media calling for all who spoke against it to be killed, and the violent teahadists that followed doing their best brownshirt imitation, complete with guns and shouting people down and threatening to kill anyone who voted for Obamacare.

Most of us had experience with their overt threats for generations. What we hear now, maybe is new to some. The rightwing ran on God, Guns and Gays since the fifties. They publicly called for killing John, Bobby and Teddy Kennedy loudly, without remorse or fear. Because they have always been the landed, the armed, the violent except for moderate GOP, and even they didn't dare fight them.

I cannot understand how people have forgotten the race riots, slaughters and lynchings that have been part of America since its inception. No, their kind are not tamed yet and were not going to allow Gore in 2000.

Gore and the rest of us remembered: Medgar, John, Martin, Bobby and so many others. How many listened to the voices in the people threatening us and saw the killing and adjusted our lives and hopes, because when it gets to that point, you will, there is no glorious Hollywood ending to this. You retreat, regroup, you keep going.

When growing up in the south I heard white men question the manhood of other races for putting up with their sneers, I said it takes a much stronger man to know what is more important than bravado, their family. Circled around on every side, hassled and pushed at, they survived to fight another day.

Every woman who has faced this knows what you will put up for your family, it takes humility to survive. You are not a coward. You are not without principles, but you have to be alive to be there for them. Gore was not a fake nor was he a coward, he was a realist and a historian. Even Lincoln was willing to bow to an electoral loss:

In the 1860 campaign for President, Lincoln firmly expressed his opposition to slavery and his determination to limit the expansion of slavery westward into the new territories acquired from Mexico in 1850. His election victory created a crisis for the nation, as many southern Democrats feared that it would just be a matter of time before Lincoln would move to kill slavery in the South. Rather than face a future in which black people might become free citizens, much of the white South supported secession. This reasoning was based upon the doctrine of states' rights, which placed ultimate sovereignty with the states.

Lincoln vowed to preserve the Union even if it meant war. He eventually raised an army and navy of nearly 3 million northern men to face a southern army of over 2 million soldiers. In battles fought from Virginia to California (but mainly in Virginia, in the Mississippi River Valley, and along the border states) a great civil war tore the United States apart. In pursuing victory, Lincoln assumed extralegal powers over the press, declared martial law in areas where no military action justified it, quelled draft riots with armed soldiers, and drafted soldiers to fight for the Union cause. No President in history had ever exerted so much executive authority, but he did so not for personal power but in order to preserve the Union.

In 1864, as an example of his limited personal ambitions, Lincoln refused to call off national elections, preferring to hold the election even if he lost the vote rather than destroy the democratic basis upon which he rested his authority.

With the electoral support of Union soldiers, many of whom were given short leaves to return home to vote, and thanks to the spectacular victory of Union troops in General Sherman's capture of Atlanta, Lincoln was decisively reelected.

http://millercenter.org/president/lincoln/essays/biography/print?ModPagespeed=noscript

What authority could Gore have had to govern if he continued to oppose the states who LEGALLY, yet crookedly certified the elections, the ruling of the USSC and the Electoral College, who all denied his being president?

No matter the emotional satisfaction we would have enjoyed, it would have meant he was no better than the Shrub, illegal in the eyes of half the nation, as we now live with. It had nothing to do with the fabled PTB that some require consistency to match the history sold by Infowars.

Who is it who gets slaughtered in every situation, not just in America, but Latin America, Africa, Asia and everywhere?

It is always those who ask for social justice: natives made landless, the poor, liberals, union organizers, women and gay rights organizers, blacks, emigrants and environmentalists. The ones that were unlanded and unarmed would have paid in blood, and the outcome of it would not have been democracy.

The solution libertarians have that we should fight for our rights with guns is the anti-thesis of a democracy, what we wail of losing. It is the same forced conformity that reactionaries use worldwide at the point of a gun. This is not new and Gore wasn't ignorant, but I do believe he was shocked and broken by what happened.

Sometimes the person doing the work, and Gore ran a campaign rivaling that of Bobby Kennedy or Obama, while still having duties to perform, can only do so much. He traveled the length of this country, he exhausted himself fighting the good fight for all of us against media mockery and the religious right. The right didn't let us forget his pain, when he put on weight and retreated from public life, after having been in it for a lifetime.

A person is mortal. The superhuman expectations we lay on leaders is cruel, using them as straw dogs, all our joy and expectations shoved on their shoulders. If we get tired or bored or don't get all we wanted, we hate them even more than the strong man oppressor. We find any reason to sneer and call them and all they did a lie and a sham.

No wonder the caliber of person seeking public office is not what it once was in many places. Many with high ideals and big hearts can see how fickle and hateful the public will be, how quick to turn on them for things one human, granted only one body, cannot change.

They are confronted by the forces we are talking about that stole the election of 2000. They look them in the face, as one person surrounded by sharks and fight to not lose their footing daily. They are human and while they may have been trained for this, they can't do it all.

We can look down and call them weak as we don't walk in their shoes everyday.

Which says a lot about us and none of it deserving much time or respect, IMO.



Thanks mopinko, for your words.

[mopinko]

53. no- thank you. this should be it's own op.

[Iliyah]

25. Yeah, but let the GOPers tell it

PRES O stole the election in 2012.

Benghazi, IRS, Leaks, NSA . . .

Oh I forget, prostitution and child sex . . .State Department. Fast and Furious and Eric Holder. . .

[libodem]

27. .

.
.
.

[Dash87]

30. Just think how different things would have been.

Continued prosperity, no deficit issue, no or limited wars, none of those other failed policies, and a more united nation.

[damnedifIknow]

31. Took the words out of my mouth

What could have been and what is, just a damn shame.

[WinkyDink]

34. Disagree. Giving in to BushCo and a corrupt SCOTUS was the exact WRONG thing for the nation, as

events have proven.

[JHB]

35. I love that someone of Biden's visibility and "in the Washington club"-ness said it publicly...

...but I gotta disagree with the "right thing for the nation" part.

I'd love to hear a follow-up question on that: "How so?"

There's no way to say whether a Gore administration would have prevented 911, but he certainly wouldn't have ignored the then-current proposed anti-terrorism plan just because the name "Al Gore" was on it; he wouldn't have de-prioritized counterterrorism and redirected resources away from it as Bush did; he likely would have implemented a response to the attack on the USS Cole (something that Bush didn't do); he wouldn't have infested top positions of his administration with neocons whose proposed response to every terrorist incident for the prior decade had been "bomb Saddam" and dismissed non-state actors like al Quaeda.

Even if 911 had not been detected and stopped, he damn well wouldn't have used it to use the US military to carry out the neocon's half-assed wet-dream joyride through Iraq.

I strongly doubt Gore would have pushed Bush's giveaway tax cuts, which is the biggest driver of the deficit and debt.

Set against those, I'd really like to hear why Joe thinks that the acquiescing in 2000 was "the right thing for the nation".

[RainDog]

37. That whole situation is an argument for Democrats to FIGHT

If only Gore had not conceded.

We might have been spared so much of the shit that we continue to deal with at this time.

Two unfunded wars and a tax cut, combined, just for starters.

A national security state gone wild.

TORTURE as national policy.

Those within the ranks of the elite don't feel the brunt of Republican rule as much as those of us on the sidelines, not in the game.

I want Democrats to fight, to get in the faces of Republicans and call them out for what they are. Bipartisanship is impossible. It only results in worse situations for the majority of Americans.

We need people who will FIGHT against the Republicans and their HATEFUL policies. Toward women, toward minorities... I would say toward things like the drug war, but I can't.

but I can have more hope of reaching someone within the Democratic ranks than within Republican ones.

[Iliyah]

39. Mr. Gore was rightfully elected

and think about it, would there had been a 9/11? Seriously, no, because Gore would have adhered to the warnings of the Clinton's administration and could have prevented.

[indepat]

40. Is our Vice President conveying that decision was tantamount to the most egregious malfeasance

of office, but Al Gore was right not to create irrevocable long-term damage to the Judicial Branch of government? That an entrenched malfeasance is present has been ratified by numerous subsequent decisions imo.

[derby378]

46. "Right thing for the nation," my ass

Considering that Bush's coup in 2000 resulted in the 9/11/01 attacks, the Iraq War, legalized torture, and the "terrorist surveillance program" (at least that's what Herr Decider called it), Gore simply didn't fight hard enough.

[Jamastiene]

49. K&R

[Autumn]

50. And WHO spoke against it when it happened? Where were all the Democrats?

"But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision in my view was made, he did the right thing for the nation."

How did that fucking work out Joe?

[loyalsister]

52. I didn't like Biden when he was running for pres.

But he is now one of my favorites. I think he is right that Gore stepping aside was the right thing to do. I remember that I was very anxious during that time before the election was called. I assume there were others who felt that way as well. Eventually it might have been a powder keg and the only people who were truly ready for a serious fight were the ones with money and the most hate on their side.

[Number23]

54. Heck yeah, he was!

Damn right!

[felix_numinous]

55. President Gore should take his due position in 2016.

Skip the election, just walk in and go for it.

[Hekate]

56. 100th rec to say how much I love Joe

[reusrename]

60. Bump for truth! n/t

[Conium]

61. Janet Reno let it happen on her watch.

In her home state, no less. If she wasn't going to fight the Bushie's overthrow of the federal government, then who could? Most of us were outraged, offended, and disappointed by their vain lust for power. President Obama was our response. Does anyone believe "Ol' Go Along to Get Along", "Compromising Barry" will appoint a special prosecutor?

President Obama needs smarter advisers.

[HughBeaumont]

64. Yahoo: Where FailOL's Wastes of Human Flesh Migrated to Embarrass America Daily.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/joe-biden-al-gore-elected-president-140302538.html

What must it be like to be an uneducated, unquestioning lump of crap who worships two of the worst and most damaging presidents ever to disgrace the office?

[Enthusiast]

69. The comments after that article are revealing.

The comments simply do not reflect the demographics and political realities of the nation. If they did, Romney would have won the election in a massive landslide.

So, what can we say about this discrepancy? I think we can say that paid operatives and robo-internet "personalities" are at work here. Yahoo comments are among the worst on the internet.

[Enthusiast]

65. It sure wasn't "for the good of the nation".

That is utter bullshit.

The Bush v Gore supreme court decision was ridiculous, "Stop counting the votes!" (we might find out the true winner.)

Look what happened to the nation.

[notadmblnd]

70. I was flipping channels last night and came across a program called

"Queen of Versailles" it was about a Florida couple that got rich off selling time shares and was building a 96,000 sq ft home. The owner of the company Westgate properties claimed in that program that he single handed-ley got GW Bush elected. When the interviewer asked him to elaborate,he said he could not because what he did wasn't legal.

[Madmiddle]

71. Typical bullshit from Biden.

The rolling over on all fours of Al Gore not only proved that Gore wasn't the right choice for this country, it also proved that his leadership would have been one of constant throwing up of the hands and walking away from a fight. In otherwords extreme cowardess. Bush did not win, and Gore walking away only showed the country that the democrats have know fight in them. Good for the country? That's the biggest joke of the day. Gore could have proved he was a leader by putting up a fight...

[Art_from_Ark]

72. What nonsense

What would *you* have done after the freaking US Supreme Court ruled against you and the freaking Florida State Legislature had already said that they would give the state's electoral votes to Bush no matter what???

Gore hardly "rolled on all fours"

[timdog44]

77. And did you not read through the entire thread.

It was very informative until right near the end.