Thanks for nothing?
John Nance Garner, who was Franklin Roosevelt's first vice president, famously remarked that the vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." That saying might also be applied to former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement Monday of Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama. Did anyone in America doubt that Gore would back Obama, now that the nomination has been decided? Did anyone see him jumping ship, a la Sen. Joe Lieberman, to support Republican John McCain? Of course not. Someone in the newsroom Monday night said, "Who else was he going to endorse? Ron Paul?" Gore could have helped his party, and Obama, if that was his intention all along, by issuing his endorsement before the Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries that dragged out the nomination process. It's conceivable that had Gore endorsed Obama earlier and with gusto, Obama might have won in Texas and Ohio, and put an earlier end to Hillary Clinton's campaign, thus giving the presumptive candidate more time to focus on the November election against McCain. The reaction to Gore's endorsement now is a big "So what?"
Labels: Politics
posted by Brant at
10:58 AM
11 Comments:
Yeah, Gore's endorsement is pretty anticlimactic now. Maybe he felt like an earlier endorsement would have tarnished his "elder statesman" glow, or placed additional strain on his relations with the Clintons.
Jimmy Carter never made a formal endorsement during the primaries, but pretty much endorsed Obama in a series of wink-wink-nudge-nudge kinds of ways, ie., talking about how his kids were all Obama supporters, etc.
--Brad Hundt
I like Al. but "Gore" and "Gusto" don't seem to belong in the same sentence. Emotionally, he's the political version of Perry Como. This makes about as much difference as Bush's endorsement of McCain. Next on Gore's endorsement list: auto seatbelts, safety matches.
And he likes puppies, too.
We all should pause for a moment as we enjoy the benefits of Gore's greatest invention, the Internet.
I think Gore is an idiot, and if I were Obama, I think I'd prefer Gore to stay out of my business, as I suspect McCain might want from Bush. As his term draws to a close and the hatred of Bush increases, I don't see how his endorsement can help McCain. And I'm not a Bush-hater.
I don't understand the whole endorsement thing... well, I do when it's still primary time... you back your horse, hoping to push them ahead with whatever group you are strong with... but once a nominee is chosen, what's the point? Most of the people we end up electing are such polarizing figures, there is little doubt as to who they are going to support... Rendell backing Clinton-- kinda ballsy because the eschatology of the Clinton era was beginning to be written at that point. Gore backing Obama... now? It's like jumping in front of a Parade and calling yourself the Grand Marshall.
-Ellipses
I agree that it was too little, too late. But I have to admit, I really liked his speech the other night, from recalls of products from China and recalls of pet food products to "the T on your BLT"...I liked what he had to say. If only Darrel Hammond would've appeared near the end to talk about the "lock box."
And, to think this man was within a whisker of sitting in the Oval Office! Despite so many problems of the last seven years, I shudder to think of what would have happened had Mr. Gore been in charge. The last seven years have exposed him as a bigger bag of wind than most could have imagined.
Well, I don't think we would have had thousands of our people killed in Iraq.
You're right, Brant. I totally agree--It would have been worse. Try millions on our own soil.
Say what?!?!?! I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have routed the terrorists in Afghanistan, but time has proven that not only did Saddam Hussein not have weapons of mass destruction, he also had no intention of attacking us. Saddam was a bad guy, but the world is full of evil dictators (see Myanmar, Zimbabwe, etc.). What we did by invading Iraq was destabilize what was a stable, albeit royally screwed up, country and create a haven for terrorists where one did not exist before. We also provided the opening for Iran, part of the president's axis of evil, to influence the Shiite government in Iraq. We should always be on the defensive against terrorism (and should have done a better job before 9/11), but the war in Iraq has been an indefensible, horrifying disaster. The stupid decision to launch a war in Iraq has not saved a single life in this country, but it has cost thousands of our soldiers' lives, led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and, along with the atrocities at Guantanamo Bay, severely damaged our reputation and ability to work with other nations around the globe. The war on terror and the war in Iraq are two entirely different things, and anyone who believes otherwise is a nitwit. And all these years later, despite spending billions upon billions of dollars, helping to wreck our economy in the process, Afghanistan is still a hellhole with little chance of being anything other than a hellhole in our lifetimes, and Iraq is a quagmire that will disintegrate into chaos the minute we withdraw our troops, whether a year from now or a hundred years from now.
Well now...
I will maintain that we would be involved in an armed conflict in Iraq regardless of who was president after the 2000 election due exclusively to the shadow-puppet show that Saddam Hussein was putting on to keep two tigers at bay (the US and Iran)... It's late, so I don't really want to start down the path of laying out the fine line that Saddam forced himself into walking... the ancillary point I am getting at is that if Al Gore had assumed the presidency, we would still have invaded Iraq... However, the duration of that invasion and the failure of its execution may have been drastically different. So, I award a point to Brant in that we may not have lost as much blood and treasure in Iraq... and a point goes to the opposition in that an ultimately incorrect war would not have been avoided.
-Ellipsezzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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