The Presidency of Al Gore, 2001-2009

[kpete]

The Presidency of Al Gore, 2001-2009
Posted May 11, 2008 | 08:39 PM (EST)
Norman MacAfee
HUFFPO


On January 20, 2001, Al Gore, the candidate who won the most votes, becomes the 43rd president of the United States.

President Gore follows up on the many urgent warnings from the intelligence agencies that Osama Bin Laden is determined to strike in the United States. The 9/11 planners are caught, and their plots are aborted.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban warns that it will destroy the two giant 1,500-year-old statues of the Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley. Much of the world sees these serene figures as symbols of wisdom beyond time, but they offend conservative Muslims. Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke talks with the Pakistani foreign minister, who reminds him that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and suggests that if aid to the poor there is increased, the Buddhas will be spared. Gore calls the American Buddhist actor Richard Gere, who immediately raises $50 million for the Afghani poor, and the Gore administration promises $5 billion in direct aid over the next five years. The Taliban agrees to preserve the statues.

Gore's favorite film, Local Hero, the Scots eco-comedy, becomes a best-selling DVD. The film is about how ancient values of subsistence, closeness to nature, and community defeat the rapacious forces of the oil industry. People like quoting the old Scot who puts the kibosh on the oilmen: "The business left, but the beach is still here."

Republicans are squawking that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a threat to the safety of the country, that he has weapons of mass destruction. Gore asks the United Nations to send its weapons inspectors back into Iraq, and after six months of searching, they find none. Saddam is in what Eliot Weinberger calls "the 'autumn of the patriarch' mode: holed up in his palaces writing his trashy novels, and oblivious to the details of government." Gore brokers a deal in which Saddam's novels are translated into English and published and he agrees to slowly loosen up some of the restrictions on the Kurds and Shias and bring them into the government.

more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-macafee/the-presidency-of-al-gore_b_101200.html

[MrSlayer]

1. Things would definitely have been better under Gore.

But I don't know that it would have been all rainbows and lollipops.

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. How specifically would he have stopped 9/11?

Knowing Bin Laden would strike is one thing. Also need to know when, where and how.

[The Inquisitive]

4. Kerry would have stopped Katrina!

http://kerrystopshurricane.ytmnd.com/

no point in speculating on how things could have been, what's done is done. Now it's a not so simple matter of holding those responsible accountable, and mobilizing damage control on a level never seen before.

[FourScore]

3. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3271922