If Gore were President, who would have been VP?

If Gore were President, had been officially given Florida, sworn in etc, who would be VP? You know who it is, the one so many of us hate. To all you people, how would things be different? To all those who find Leiberman the equivalant to Bush, how would the world be different? Would we have still gone to war?

Just a thought.

2. Gore would have let the inspectors do their work in Iraq

I don't think Joe would have been able to convince Gore to do it. It never made any sense. I believe him when Gore says that we should have stayed in Afghanistan.

But I don't know what Gore would have done after 9/11. I don't recall him answering that question in interviews. No one has asked him or he declines to answer except to say he agrees with being in Afghanistan.

Frankly, I think he would be fighting off attempts to impeach him. But then, he would have taken the August PDB seriously and 9/11 may never have happened in the first place.

if Gore were president at that time. I personally don't think it would have happened.

Took the right president to change the rules for hijaacking response and have the entire air force stand down.

for 7 minutes, giving the terrorists time to complete their mission. Gore also might have chosen a Secretary of Defense who would have considered two planes hitting the WTC as something worthy of his attention (unlike Rumsfeld, who only responded after the Pentagon was hit).

He would no dobt have been resisting a GOP putsch just like Clinton did, but Like WJC he would have still run the country superbly while also beating back the traitors in Congress. There is no way he would have let 9/11 happen. that took willful negligence.

was called by reporters to comment three days before Bush* launched the attack. Gore's literal words were "I would not start this war."

He was in Europe at the time of the call from the reporters and broke away to answer the question. Never forget it. He was one of a handful of prominent Democrats who spoke out against the war.

1.) He's said in the 8 years he VP (and saw all the PDBs), he never saw any PDB that had language anywhere close to famous one. Had he been given one like that, he would have demanded answers and action from the various security and law enforcement agencies.

Since there was a good deal of info about the hijackers and the plan that never made it to Smirk's desk, that might have been the end of it. (Or they might have been caught even earlier.)

2.) If 9/11 had happened on his watch any way, Gore would have gone after bin Laden in Afghanistan with more troops.

3.) He would have used the national unity to shift the country to renewal energy and fight global warming.

4.) He never would have invaded Iraq. Never. Ever.

5.) He never would have adopted a policy of preemption or trampled our civil rights.

6.) He never would have ordered the torture of anyone for any reason. (He has been very, very vocal about that.)

Lieberman could not have convinced him to do any of those things, even if they had been suggested in a Gore White House or the Republicans were demanding them.

well, maybe among the populace, but republican congressional reps (especially) don't play that way.

K & R.

PS - No, I don't believe we would have gone to war.

surround him. in other words, all this moralizing and politicizing of lieberman's for whoever has the power, is nothing more, i think, than lieberman's way of covering up for the fact that he does not have a self which can stand on principle.

when the emotional wave pushed by the republican majority and the christian coalition wanted to censure clinton, lieberman was the first one there on the floor of the senate preaching morality to the country and to clinton in an affair that had nothing to do with lieberman.

post 911 the emotional wave of the country was patriot act, iraq war, get the spooky terrorists and that is what lieberman went with.

he did not, and does not realize, that if he could have said, "wait one minute. let us really find out who did what, when, where and to whom," he might have saved many lives and earned some honorable respect.

i think gore's way of thinking might have exerted some honorable respect into lieberman and he would not be selling himself like the weasel deselfed being that he is.

Leiberman would probably be more moderate than he is today, just watch the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" to see an example of the ripples in the pond we all make.

And Liberman would have started the Iraq debacle.

I think that Gore would have relied upon himself, and he would not have given decision-making over to his VP.

Pretty much sum up the powers of the vice president. Nothing in there about the vice president having any control over going to war.

Gore isn't incompetent thus he probably would continue the tradition of NOT using the Vice President as his de facto National Security Advisor.

Gore would have followed tradition and Lieberman would be attending funerals. Gore could even have switched VPs for his second term.

Would Gore have had a fatal accident, if you believe 9/11 was an "inside" job? It's not like Lieberman has changed any of his positions over the years, has he? Gore and the Dems were running away from Clinton, trying to project a decent, uncompromised integrity. They had already drank Rove's K-AID. And I still contend that the second, "Pumpkin Man" debate lost at least ten states that Gore would have won had he not looked like so incredibly artificial. And did Lieberman show any spine during the recount debacle?

That's my opinion. I don't mean to flame and hope it is not taken as such.

It is likely that Gore would have taken terrorism as a much more serious issue after taking oath. I think Gore would have been smart enough to have called for Louis Freeh's resignation immediately upon becoming president. He would have read and incorporated various suggestions put forth in the Hart-Rudman report. He would have listened to Richard Clarke. He would have paid attention to "chatter". He would have paid attention to the "bin Laden set to attack the US" PDB. I'm confident of those things.

However, let's say 9/11 still went off due to beaurocratic infighting and inaction (let's say Gore didn't call for his resignation and Freeh fucked things up just to fuck up Gore's presidency). Well, then in that case, Gore would likely have been impeached for not stopping 9/11. The national atmosphere would have been one of anger against the president brought upon by the repuke congress and the media. Gore barely survive removal by the senate, which would have been tied 50/50, with Lieberman splitting the tie.

In that case, maybe he possibly would have been pressured to resign giving way to another PNAC plant - Joe Lieberman. And there the question lies, would Lieberman have taken us to war with Iraq? Would he have been more serious with Afghanistan?

Or say, Gore refused to step down. He instead attacks the Taliban in Afghanistan and actually builds unity among nations to fight terrorism. Would Lieberman have tried to get his way with Iraq after a somewhat successful campaign in Afghanistan? Would he have eventually resigned due to differences with Gore? Or would Lieberman have been more differential to the president and agreed that attacking Iraq would be an unecessary and foolish course of action?

A lot of historical what-ifs here...They are fascinating to ponder. It's obvious Gore's and Lieberman's relationship has been strained over the years. It's difficult to imagine even VP Lieberman publically disagreeing with his own president, but considering how convinced he is that Iraq was the right thing to do, it's possible he wouldn't have even lasted as VP.

Gore always felt Saddam had to be delt with beyond by just isolation. Full scale invasion? Probably not. Covert action? Maybe.

Terrorism would have been a much higher priority. Gore would probably have continued Clinton's strategy of weekly meetings with his counter-terrorism team, implementing the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report and so on. The US would probably have remained involved in a hands on capability in the Mid-East peace process and it wouldn't have slid into descent like it has under *.

But Gore would have been working with a Republican Congress (and we wouldn't have had the 50-50 result we did whereby the VP had the casting ballot because Lieberman would have vacated his seat in CT and the Republican Governor would have appointed Christopher Shays or Nancy what-her-name to the vacancy). So I'm not sure how much he would have accomplished in terms of getting counter-terrorism measures through -he would probably have run up against what Clinton did when he tried to do the same thing

If Gore had presided over 9/11, he may or may not have been a one term President. With the right PR skills and political influence he would probably have not been impeached. He would have allowed an invetigation into what went wrong and implemented recommendations from that investigation.

We wouldn't have attacked Iraq -though we would have kept sanctions and launched air strikes when Iraq was being obstinate on nuclear inspections. Afghanistan is more interesting. I think he would have continued the Clinton Administration's efforts to get Bin Laden and would have placed pressure on Musharraf to help -not that Musharraf would necessarily have done so. He would have certainly tightened the screws on the Taliban regime to cooperate

Gore would have probably handled pre-planning for Hurricane Katrina much better than * did and wouldn't have appointed his cronies to FEMA. This may or may not have improved the situation drastically but it would have made some difference IMO.

If elected to a second term, Gore would have been the first Democratic President since Truman (I think) to appoint a Chief Justice and would also have appointed another justice to the Supreme Court. This would have had some impact on the ideological dynamics of the Supreme Court

Gore and Lieberman would probably have been advocates of regime change in Iraq through internal means -which was similar to the policy of the Clinton Administration.. Lieberman would have probably been a loyal VP. Don't forget his domestic views are very liberal and even his foreign policy views are quite moderate (excluding his Iraq position of course). If you look at his record on the Mideast peace process, for instance, it's in line with the Democratic mainstream. He was one of the senators willing to meet with Arafat in the 1990s as well. I think he would have been a VP in the mould of Democratic VPs before him

An invasion of Iraq was being planned only days after bush took office. The war on Iraq only took place to further the neocon's agenda, there was no valid reason for it.

We could have dealt with Saddam in other ways short of a full-scale invasion.

EDIT: Lieberman doesn't set policy, he is a tool, a follower, and an enabler.