As a general rule of thumb, when writing your own alternate history scenarios in response to other people’s alternate history scenarios, it helps if you can demonstrate at least a cursory knowledge of your subject matter. Like, say, knowing exactly what impeachment entails, the non parliamentary nature of the United States government, minor little details like that. As for being humorless and heavy-handed, well, Willis and Easterbrook were about even there anyway. Finally, when you get caught out, don’t get huffy about it.
(UPDATE: The mockery ends here, btw.)
Still, it’s a good question: how would have things gone under a hypothetical Gore administration? In my admittedly odd and heretical opinion: pretty much the same as under Bush. In my opinion, the recession, 9/11 and the Afghanistan invasion would have happened pretty much on schedule; as for Iraq… six month delay at most, more likely three, possibly even no delay at all, depending on how little said h.G.a. felt like humoring the UN. About the most significant difference would probably be that we’d probably have a Democratic Senate, maybe a Democratic House (I kind of doubt it, but it’s possible)… and a lot more lip service support from certain foreign countries. Everything else? Same old, same old: there’d be a recovering economy (none of this stuff about tax cuts and interest rates, it’s all about appeasing the economic gods with the appropriate animal sacrifices), a seething Iraq and a scandal-ridden UN* in this alternate, too.
As to how well Gore would have handled this… if you want to believe that he would have solved it all and wrapped it up in a bow, knock yourself out; likewise to those who’d consider the “We’d All Be Doomed” scenario to be more likely. We’re never going to know either way – or even if a third option (“Eh. He got through it, some good here, some bad there, got lucky a few times, got knocked back once or twice”) would have been the end result.
*You can safely assume that I’ve heard the five most popular arguments both for and against any one of these assertions, and the counters for each, and the counters for the counters, and so on, and so on, and so on. You have my permission to pretend that I gave your favorite counterargument to your favorite argument, that you demolished my debating position completely and that now I’m sulking about it in the corner over there.
I feel that this will save valuable time all around.
So basically what you’re saying is that Nader is right, there’s no difference between the Republocrats and the Demoblicans? 🙂
I’ll buy pretty much everything you said (for a dollar) except for Iraq. Even if Gore considered it a good idea (which hypothesis doesn’t jive with his public statements on it, though granted that we don’t know how much is politics and how much is sincere), I don’t see him spending the political capital on such a gamble. Especially since (IMO) he wouldn’t have been able to count on the same level of built-in support from his party that a GOP president has for such a thing.
“So basically what you’re saying is that Nader is right, there’s no difference between the Republocrats and the Demoblicans? :)”
If you look at it as Republicans/Democrats being from Earth and Nader being from, say, Pluto? In that case, sure. 🙂
As to Iraq… a h.G.a. would be able to draw from the public statements on Iraq from the last administration. Heck, they could have used them to beat the Republicans around the head and shoulders in the 2002 midterms. For that matter, while I may not have the highest opinion of certain of the partisans on the Other Side, surely they don’t need to be taught how to recognize when it’s time to Put The Boot In.
No, that wasn’t evil Nega-Moe.
Hey, you’re talking back — I could’ve sworn I saw you sulking in the corner, pondering a withdrawal from political commentary after having been ripped to shreds by my insightful and un-rebuttable arguments.
a h.G.a. would be able to draw from the public statements on Iraq from the last administration.
I guess that touches on the big question — would the h.G.a have been led by a DLC/Clintonesque Gore or a post-2000-election feisty lefty Gore?
Feh. What’s the point? There’s no way to know — life’s too complicated. This sort of exercise generally serves only to reveal one’s own biases.
This sort of exercise generally serves only to reveal one’s own biases.
And lack of originality…I’ve read a least three of those “parodies” today and not one was funny or that insightful.
“Hey, you’re talking back — I could’ve sworn I saw you sulking in the corner, pondering a withdrawal from political commentary after having been ripped to shreds by my insightful and un-rebuttable arguments.”
I got better.
Moe
PS: Revelation of one’s biases has its own charms, I think.
I think there’s a good chance 9/11 wouldn’t have happened on Gore’s watch – that Clarke would have gotten the tree shaken and the hijackers would have fallen out. Now, that would probably mean that the country wouldn’t have been energized against terror and al Qaeda might have been allowed to live to plan another attack (perhaps with AQ Khan’s nukes).
Assuming 9/11 though, I can in fact imagine Gore going into Iraq. I suspect he would have spent a year really cleaning up Afghanistan though, and I think his more conservative fiscal policy would have led to a quicker recovery. I can imagine Gore deciding to lead a New World Order, picking Iraq as the first country to fix, and spending 2003 assembling a GWI-style coalition. Probably he’d have to wait for the 04 election cycle to commit, and this would be a big issue in the five Gore-Lugar debates during the course of the year, alongside the steep increase in gas taxes, mileage standards, and harrassment of SUV drivers.
In 05, humiliated by the UN/US inspectors’ revelations that he has 0 WMDs, Saddam would accept exile to one of the ‘stans and we would have been forced to go in and impose order/govt after insurgents tried to take advantage of Gore’s distraction by the Fritos scandal.
Figured I’d throw up my own parody here, since it’s sort of on topic. There’s plenty to mock, I’m sure…so don’t read too much into it.
November 2nd, 2008
Crawford, Texas
Tomorrow will mark the first American presidential election in eight years. FOX News polls project a 72% lead for President George W. Bush, most likely attributable to his promise to cut taxes for the middle class.
A legal challenge to the constitutionality of President Bush’s re-election in 2008 was quashed by the Supreme Court earlier this week, which refused to hear the case. Speaking to reporters, Chief Justice Roy Moore said: “All facts directly contradict the claims of the plaintiff. There is no basis whatsoever for this case to proceed.”
The detonation of a nuclear warhead at the Chicago rally for Democratic candidate John Kerry, one week before the 2004 election, forced President Bush to declare martial law in the United States.
The attack bore all the trademarks of Osama Bin Laden, who had narrowly escaped Task Force 5 in Afghanistan. TF5, a crack Special Forces unit, was redeployed after it became clear that Bin Laden was no longer in Asia and that those who had aided his escape were in Iraq.
When rioting broke out across the United States in the aftermath of the bombing, President Bush promptly called U.S. troops home from Iraq to deal with the domestic situation. The chaos created by the blast, as well as the loss of a majority of the Democratic Party’s leadership, necessitated postponement of the election. Those protesting the declaration of martial law were detained, and the nation began its march towards recovery.
In 2005, Osama Bin Laden returned to a warm welcome in Iraq, which had long been a base of operations for Al Qaeda, and assumed the presidency. President Bush declared war on Iraq, but was hindered in attempts to liberate that nation a second time by the coalescence of the terrorist OPEC nations around Bin Laden.
The fall of Pakistan in 2006, and the Chinese takeover of Taiwan in 2007, signaled clearly that all freedom loving nations must fight for peace. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said shortly before his death in the ‘snapping turtle’ incident, “If Europe doesn’t want to be free with us, we’ll be free by ourselves…the American people are a courageous and noble people.”
President Bush, acting this summer on intelligence that suggested an unholy alliance between Bin Laden’s faction, Beijing, and Islamabad, re-constituted the draft and ordered missile strikes against strategic locales in each nation. U.S. troops are now poised for victory across the world, and the battle for the American way of life will shortly be won.
Giving a speech on the eve of the election, President Bush said: “Today, America is safer and freer than at any point this century. There has not been a terrorist attack on American soil since the tragedy in Chicago, and we are all stronger and more secure because of the hardships and sacrifices we’ve made together. God bless you all and God bless America.”
Silly, if Gore were president the world would be made out of candy.
Let’s just say it wouldn’t be a pleasant political happening if Gore had been president on 9/11, since Republicans could think they were blameless if nothing else.
Why can’t we focus on more pertinent counterfactuals, like what if Alexander had his shots or the American Indians had a squad of deathless ninjas on their side?
“Why can’t we focus on more pertinent counterfactuals,”
It amuses me to do this.
Just trying to keep the issue in its appropriate level of seriousness.
Counterfactual: Jackie Chan was supposed to be on the WTC towers at the time of the attacks filming a movie about a kick-ass window washer. (tis true). If his camera crew hadn’t been running late, Chan would have single-handedly stopped the attacks with a ski pole and a halibut.
You have my permission to pretend that I gave your favorite counterargument to your favorite argument, that you demolished my debating position completely and that now I’m sulking about it in the corner over there.
Oh, come on, Moe, just because I demolished you completely is no reason to sulk!
Anyway, you said you got better. Though of course every time a new Constant Reader reads your post, you will be going back to that corner to sulk. Um. Isn’t this going to be kind of like Groundhog Day?
It’s a nice fantasy that invading Iraq was so essential to the anti-terrorism effort that Al Gore would have done it too, but it is just a fantasy, right, Moe? You do know it was a completely pointless sidetrack that would never have happened if PNAC hadn’t come to power?