For the narrow majority of voters in the 2000 election who selected Al Goreto be their president, everything about such a scenario would seem to be welcome.The nation's fate would, after all, be in the hands of an experienced Democratwith ample knowledge of foreign affairs. Gore's inner circle would undoubtedlyhave included more liberal internationalists and fewer right-wing unilateralistspreoccupied with missile defense. The war on terrorism, it follows, would havebeen conducted with greater sensitivity to classic liberal concerns, such assafeguarding civil liberties at home as well as ensuring that military forceabroad is used judiciously and within reasonable legal and moral constraints.
The only problem with such a scenario is that it doesn't hold up underscrutiny. Although we cannot know for certain how a Gore administration wouldhave responded to the terrorist attacks, the election campaign of the former vicepresident and his running mate, Joseph Lieberman--along with the intense pressurethey would have felt from the right--suggests that, if anything, Gore and companywould have shown less caution and restraint than the Bush administration has indeploying military force. On some war-related issues, such as civil liberties,the differences between Al Gore and George W. Bush would likely have beenmarginal.
This is not to suggest that, in light of September 11, Ralph Nader was right.On major domestic issues, Gore and his appointees would have advanced policiesmuch more congenial to liberals. Unlike Bush, Gore would not have used theterrorist attacks as an excuse to promote a grossly unfair economic stimulus planthat awards hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to large corporationswhile offering nothing to the bottom three-fourths of society. Nor would Gorehave delayed passage of an airline security bill for more than two months byinsisting that airport screening be left in the hands of private companies.Although it is impossible to predict the makeup of Gore's cabinet, there's a goodchance that the nation would have been spared Tommy Thompson's bungling of theanthrax scare (first Thompson downplayed the danger, and then he assured thepublic that a mere $1.5 billion would be enough to upgrade the nation'sdilapidated public-health system) as well as John Ashcroft's curious use of theJustice Department's resources in the aftermath of September 11. (A few weeksafter the attacks, Ashcroft sent federal agents to raid a center that offeredmedical marijuana to cancer and AIDS patients in California; more recently, hisattention has shifted to overturning Oregon's assisted-suicide law.)
Commander-in-Chief Gore
But while a Gore/Lieberman administration would have avoidedsuch gaffes and ideological excesses on the domestic front, its approach in otherrespects may have been no more prudent--and perhaps less so. For all hisgun-slinging rhetoric about capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," Bushwaited four weeks before bombing Afghanistan, refused to send in large numbers ofU.S. ground forces, and has thus far avoided widening the war to Iraq. He hasdone all of this while arousing little opposition from the more hawkish wing ofhis own party and little second-guessing from the media.
Would the same treatment have been extended to Gore? He would have beensavaged, suggests a former Gore adviser speaking on background, for taking thesame approach. While nobody can say for certain whether pressure from the rightwould have propelled Gore to deploy military force more aggressively and on awider number of fronts than Bush has, there is broad agreement that such pressurewould have been far greater with a Democrat in office--particularly with regardto Iraq. "With a Democratic president, I think the Republicans would have beencalling for blood, saying it was the wimpish Clinton administration that left uswith this Iraq problem," says former Carter administration official Gary Sick, ahistorian of U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East at Columbia University. "Ofcourse, the irony is that it was Bush's father who didn't finish the job duringthe Gulf War."
The pressure to escalate the military campaign would not, however, have comesolely from outside the White House. Since September 11, no member of the Senatehas voiced more hawkish views about the scope of the war than Joseph Lieberman,the man who would have been Gore's vice president. In numerous speeches andnewspaper articles, Lieberman has argued that Saddam Hussein's "special hatredfor America" calls for aggressive action to topple the Iraqi dictator--aperspective in line with that of Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy secretary ofdefense. Such statements prompted the conservative strategist William Kristol, awell-known hawk, to tell the Los Angeles Times that Lieberman's views are"closer to us than parts of the Bush administration." Kristol was referring, ofcourse, to Colin Powell, who has persuaded Bush, at least for now, thatbroadening the war to Iraq would provoke enormous anger throughout the Islamicworld and fracture the coalition currently supporting America's intervention inAfghanistan.
Like Lieberman, Gore is no dove. He was one of the few Democratic senators tovote in favor of the 1991 resolution authorizing the Gulf War; and he emergedduring the past decade as an aggressive advocate of military intervention inplaces like Haiti and Kosovo (although, like Clinton, Gore stood in silence whenintervention was most clearly needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe: the1994 genocide in Rwanda). Back in 1988, during his failed bid for the Democraticpresidential nomination, Gore tried to distinguish himself from his liberalopponents by highlighting his support for the Reagan administration's invasion ofGrenada and his unilateral opposition to a nuclear freeze. More recently, duringthe 2000 campaign, it was Bush, not Gore, who voiced caution about U.S. militaryintervention abroad. Given all of this, the question is not whether prominentmembers of a Gore/Lieberman administration would have considered broadening thewar to Iraq, but whether anyone of Colin Powell's stature would have been presentto argue the opposite view.
Gore would likely have named his longtime aide Leon Fuerth as nationalsecurity adviser, former ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke assecretary of state, and a centrist figure such as former Georgia Senator Sam Nunnas secretary of defense. Other possibilities for the latter post include formerCIA Director James Woolsey and Paul Wolfowitz, who is admired by Martin Peretz,one of Gore's closest friends.
Offsetting this reality is the fact that, compared to Bush, Gorehas vast knowledge of and experience with foreign policy. In principle, he wouldhave entered the White House much better prepared to handle such a crisis. Butwould Gore's superior command of the facts have made him a decidedly moreeffective leader?
While the answer might seem obvious to liberals who shudder every time Bushattempts to pronounce the name of a foreign official, the question is difficultto answer. The way politicians respond to crises is inherently unpredictable(witness the suddenly Churchillian figure of Rudy Giuliani). Moreover, the roleof the president is as much symbolic as it is substantive during mostforeign-policy crises. While the hard thinking within the Bush administration hasclearly fallen to the likes of Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,Bush's popularity ratings suggest that he is managing the role of figureheadeffectively. Of course, given how clueless and tongue-tied he often appears whenasked to explain what is actually happening, public confidence may eventuallyerode.
On the other hand, for all his erudition, Gore's notoriously wooden mannerwould have presented problems of its own, quite possibly preventing him fromprojecting the empathy and humanness that are crucial during times of widespreadnational anxiety. His sense of being the most knowledgeable person in the roommay have inhibited his ability to delegate authority. And several Democrats haveprivately expressed skepticism about whether Gore would have assembled asexperienced a team of advisers as Bush has.
Gore's Multilateralism
In one respect, Gore would have had a distinct advantage.The terrorist attacks have, after all, forced the Bush administration to abandonits unilateralism and embrace a range of policies--a more cooperative approachtoward Russia and China, a constructive relationship with the United Nations, anopenness to "nation building"--that most conservatives scorned prior to September11. To the extent that Bush's unilateralism fueled resentment of America duringhis first nine months in office (as it undoubtedly did), and to the extent thatGore would have adopted a more multilateralist approach (as he surely wouldhave), one can argue that Gore would have been better positioned to elicitsympathy and cooperation from other countries. This might not matter in theshort-term, but it will as time passes and the war on terrorism grows moreprotracted.
But there is one issue that complicates the picture: Israel. As Tony Judtnoted recently in The New York Review of Books, while it is obvious thatOsama bin Laden has cynically exploited the plight of the Palestinians for hisown twisted purposes, it is disingenuous to believe that America's unwaveringsupport for Israel is not a major source of anti-U.S. sentiment throughout theIslamic world. "Arabs and other Muslims from Rabat to Jakarta have watched Israelbuild settlements in occupied territory in defiance of UN resolutions andinternational law," notes Judt. "They've been shown footage of the Israeli armydestroying houses and land.... When bin Laden claims that he is striking backfor the Palestinians, too, he renders the Palestinian cause no service--but hedoesn't lose friends, either."
Few people in the Islamic world likely believe that the Bush administrationhas been evenhanded in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Nevertheless, one can make a strong case that Bush has been tougher on Israelthan have most Democrats. On several occasions, Colin Powell has pointedlycriticized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for sending tanks into the WestBank to reoccupy Palestinian territory. Bush recently appeared before the UnitedNations to express support for a Palestinian state, while Powell delivered aspeech calling for a two-state solution and an end to Israel's occupation.Though Washington continues to support Israel--not least with billions of dollarsin foreign aid--one wonders if a Gore/Lieberman administration would have takenany of these steps toward peace and fairness. Throughout his career, Gore hasbeen extremely close to the Israel lobby. While campaigning for the New Yorkprimary in 1988, Gore famously chided his Democratic opponents--and even, at onepoint, the Reagan administration--for being too pro-Arab.
Homeland Security
The war on terrorism is, of course, being fought at home aswell as abroad. How would Gore have approached the challenge of enhancing publicsafety--and bringing terrorists to justice--while preserving basic constitutionalvalues? In recent weeks, liberals have expressed outrage over the Bushadministration's ongoing detention of hundreds of suspects whose identitiesremain unknown. Many are equally incensed by the administration's decision towiretap conversations between prisoners and their lawyers and to try suspectedterrorists in military tribunals.
The use of secret evidence against suspected terrorists, however, isnothing new. In fact, it began under the Clinton administration, which, followingthe 1993 World Trade Center bombing, authorized the Immigration andNaturalization Service to round up dozens of Arab immigrants and detain them onthe basis of secret evidence, sometimes for as long as four years. TheClinton/Gore administration maintained this Kafkaesque practice even after judgesoverturned several cases in which the government's allegations proved completelyunfounded--and despite the fact that civil courts have proved more than capableof handling terrorism cases. (The Classified Information Procedures Act of 1974allows prosecutors to introduce classified evidence in such cases; the onlycondition is that defendants are given summaries of the evidence.)
Nor would Gore's presence have necessarily altered the terms of the USAPatriot Act, the antiterror legislation that Congress enacted in October. Amongother things, the law broadens the government's power to conduct wiretaps andenables the Justice Department to detain immigrants for years at a time withoutany judicial proceeding. Whatever one makes of these provisions, a coalition ofDemocrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress supported them, just as abipartisan coalition supported the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Actof 1996, which was introduced and signed into law by President Clinton. A strongcase can be made that the 1996 law, which radically restricted the right of allprisoners to challenge their convictions under habeas corpus, represented agreater assault on constitutional freedom--under far less tryingcircumstances--than did the recent bill.
As on the foreign-policy front, moreover, Gore probably would have facedadded pressure from Republicans to undertake a sweeping crackdown--and perhapswould have endured more finger-pointing about why September 11 was ever allowedto happen in the first place. "With Gore, I think we would have been hearing muchmore about the massive, catastrophic intelligence failure that led to September11," says historian Gary Sick. "The reality is that he was part of the previouseight years and if somebody wanted to point a finger, they could point it athim."
Given the record, says David Cole, a law professor and civil-libertiesexpert at Georgetown University, "there is no reason to believe the FBI or INSwould have been more restrained with Gore in office." He adds: "The reality isthat, whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, law enforcementseeks as much power and discretion as it can get. And in times of fear, it canget a lot."
The Expanding Pentagon
The same is true of another part of the government whosesize and authority has grown dramatically since September 11--namely, thePentagon. Despite facing an adversary utterly incapable of defending itselfagainst America's existing military arsenal, Pentagon contractors are calling onCongress to fund expensive new weapons systems that are not needed to fightterrorism and that may soon raise military spending beyond even the highestlevels during the Cold War. Already, Lockheed Martin Corporation has received thegreen light to build a new generation of fighter planes that will cost anestimated $250 billion over the next decade--even though America does not face asingle enemy with an advanced air force and the Pentagon is already pouringbillions into construction of the F-22 fighter jet (also built by Lockheed andoriginally designed to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War).
Would Al Gore have exercised restraint? William Hartung, director of theArms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute, notes that it was Gorewho pledged during the 2000 election campaign to increase the military budget by$100 billion over 10 years (Bush promised a smaller, $45-billion increase overthe same period). While Bush discussed the possibility of skipping a generationof fighter planes, Gore warned that doing so might endanger national security.Again, the pattern can be traced back to the late 1980s, when Gore criticized thefield of Democratic presidential candidates for opposing "every single weaponssystem that has ever been proposed"--despite the fact that Gore himself voted toreduce Reagan's defense budget in the early 1980s. "The conventional weaponsprograms would be very secure under Gore," says Hartung.
The same is true of missile defense. Few things have seemed as illogical asthe Bush administration's insistence that September 11 makes a missile-defenseshield as necessary and urgent as ever. The fact that such a shield would beuseless against any imaginable attack carried out by a terrorist on U.S.soil--and that the long-standing obsession with Star Wars has clearly divertedattention from more tangible security threats--seems not to have registered.
Nevertheless, while it's true that a Gore administration would not have madethe militarization of space the centerpiece of its pre-September 11 foreignpolicy, the reality is that, even today, missile defense enjoys bipartisansupport in Washington. "Aside from the rhetoric, Gore's program would have beenremarkably similar to Bush's," says Joe Cirincione, an expert on missile defenseand nuclear proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Though Gore probably would have sought to revise rather than abandon the 1972Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, says Cirincione, the fear of being branded soft ondefense would likely have led him to fund missile-defense testing at roughly thesame level as during the Clinton administration ($5 billion per year, comparedwith $8 billion under Bush). Cirincione, who spent nine years working in theHouse Armed Services Committee, believes that Gore may well have been less boldthan Bush in pushing for reductions in the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals. (Inlate November, Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin reached a verbalagreement to cut the number of warheads on both sides by two-thirds.) "Militaryreform and arms control often fare better under Republican presidents who are notafraid of being labeled weak on defense," says Cirincione. "Gore would have hadless room to maneuver."
None of this is to say that America is better off with Bush inthe White House. As noted, Gore's presence would have made a substantialdifference on countless domestic issues. In a recession, a Gore/Liebermanadministration would almost certainly have advocated some combination of taxrebates for low-wage workers and expanded unemployment benefits as well asfederal investment in areas such as public health and civil defense. Were Gore inoffice, vastly more money would have been available for such needs, since themassive tax cut passed earlier this year would never have happened.
Furthermore, Gore would not have exploited the crisis atmosphere in orderto advance other elements of the far right's agenda, such as the rollback ofenvironmental protections. Capitalizing on the fact that few people are payingattention, Bush's Bureau of Land Management recently reversed a regulationallowing federal officials to block mining operations that cause "substantial,irreparable harm" to the environment. The administration has seized on concernabout America's oil dependency and advocated drilling in the Alaskan wildliferefuge, even though doing so will have little impact on the nation's long-termenergy needs.
But while it's important to recognize these differences, it's also importantnot to exaggerate them or to ignore factors that might have led Gore, arguablythe most risk-averse politician of his generation, to do what is expedient ratherthan what he believes is right. This instinct is, after all, part of the reasonwhy he chose not to call for a statewide recount of the Florida vote and, thus,why he is watching the current crisis from the sidelines.
