Flying Pink Unicorns

Given that Gore has only a year left in office, I thought this would be a good time to take a quick look back on his presidency. Overall, I'd give him about a C. I'll gloss over Florida. Its stunning the the Supremes let the recount go on, less stunning that the recount managed to produce a victory by 1,128 votes. Well, we'll take it. He sort of meandered through the first year, not real popular or anything, then came 9-11. His speeches to the country, and call to reach across party lines was exactly what the doctor ordered. Appointing James Baker as a special roving ambassador was a master touch. And Jimmy has performed real well, to the surprise of many. It was a good idea, it really was. Definitely his finest hour. Bet he misses those 82% approval ratings! God only knows how Bush would have mishandled 9-11! His taking out of the Taliban was masterful. Easy, I suppose, but masterful. I'm less happy about his sticking to his 25,000 and no more strategy. The Taliban are making a comeback, and we're not DECISIVELY WINNING. Pretty wimpy, Al, pretty damn wimpy. The tax cuts of 2003 may have been nakedly political, but being narrowly targeted, the tax cuts did little to slow the resumption of budget surpluses, which, as you'll recall, began small in 2004, and are projected to be at $204 billion in his last year of office. Not a bad way to leave the fiscal house reasonably in order for your successor. His big fiscal failing, of course, was his utter failure to do ANYTHING about health care costs, either in the short run, or in the future. He signed onto the prescription drug entitlement, and did nothing at all to slow the runaway growth of medicare. History will not be kind. Even JEB BUSH talks more about health care costs than Al. Yesterday Iraq finally shot down an American plane. We've said it was inevitable. John McCain has broiled Gore in oil for failing to do something about Saddam, but has been awful quiet about what exactly he would do. Given that he ran as tough on defense in 2004, and made a fairly close election of it at that, its a tad surprising that McCain hasn't been clearer about what to do about Saddam. I agree, something really DOES need to be done. A targeted assasination would be a fine idea about now. Ah, the 2004 election. Incredible that it AGAIN came down to Florida. McCain winning New Jersey and Michigan as well as Iowa and Wisconsin made for nervous times. But Gore rewrote the map, winning Tenessee by 10 points(!) Arkansas, Missouri (by 3,000 votes!) and Ohio. These states made up for the above lossess, leaving Florida's 27 electoral votes to AGAIN decide the whole damn election. At least this time it was a 25,000 vote margin, real close, but McCain graciously conceded after the first automatic machine recount produced a few dozen extra votes for Gore. Talk about groundhog day! McCain was a class act in conceding quickly. Makes me wonder if we wouldn't have been better off w/him. But no, the damn repubs stll hold Congress, and w/o a reasonable donkey like Gore, god only knows what they'd do. Jeb Bush is CRUSHING Hillary in the polls as of now, just whipping her lil arse. 21 points! When Gore replaced Lieberman with John Edwards as VP in 2004 he practically guarnateed that Hillary would win the nomination. Lieberman's unwillingness to fully support Gore in 2004 crippled him with the base. And Edwards ya gotta admit was teriffic as Vice, giving the administration at least one human being in the race. But as a potential nominee, VP Edwards has laid a big fat egg. On the GOP side, George Allen stands no chance-- Bush is the certain nominee. And he WILL beat Hill, badly. Its really not pretty. Ya gotta admit, President Bush does kind of roll off the tounge. Besides, the Court is still fairly liberal, and Chief Justice Dershowitz will probably keep it that way even if Bush does win and does get a few appointments. The last 4 years have been mostly a waste. His latest big try at an Israeli peace deal is doomed to fail, like those before it. His engagment with Iran is highly disappointing, no surprise there. He's punting for his successor. His rekindling of Clinton's North Korea deal in 2002 is the one shining success foreign policy wise. Sending Sec State Biden to Pyongyang worked far better than anyone could have thought. Hell, Gingrich and McCain applauded once we announced we had their entire nuke program under lock and key in the States. At least he had the good sense to stay entirely out of the roiling immigration debate. Jeb Bush is actually well placed to lead on this issue, god help me for saying so. The one bright spot was Katrina. After a few AWFUL days, where the federal government was AWOL (we all remember those horrifying scenes), Gore really took hold. That was the post-9-11 Gore, the decisive, in charge, Gore. The guy I volunteered for in Florida in 04! He fired the FEMA director on the spot, ON TELEVISION!!! That took cojones! And the relief aftermath, while disappointing, has, ya gotta admit, gone better than you ever expected. 90% of the people are back, and Gore's practically a saint in New Orleans! Its global warming where Gore's been the most disappointing. This issue has animated him for decades, and yet as president he's done precious little about it. Oh, sure, he personally negotiated the Beijing protocol, in which China and India are brought into the process. But we never even ratified Kyoto, and the Euros are missing their Kyoto targets anyway. Think China and India are going to take tough action under the Beijing Protocol while the US doesn't even bother with Kyoto, and the Euros miss their targets? Not so much. Nice going Al.