Al Gore's Regrets

To warm up the crowd for Barack Obama last night, Al Gore did something he has resisted for eight years, replay the 2000 election and express bitter regret over what might have been.

"Take it from me," he told Democrats, "if it had ended differently, we would not be bogged down in Iraq; we would have pursued bin Laden until we captured him.

"We would not be facing a self-inflicted economic crisis; we would be fighting for middle income families.

"We would not be showing contempt for the Constitution; we'd be protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

"And we would not be denying the climate crisis; we'd be solving it."

If Gore had shown more of that combativeness eight years ago, we might be looking back at his two terms in the Oval Office and facing a different set of choices this year.

Instead, we have an admirable but tragic figure with the consolations of an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize and a rueful sense of humor.

"Today," Al Gore told Democrats, "we face essentially the same choice we faced in 2000, though it may be even more obvious now, because John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them, the same policies all over again.

"Hey, I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous."

Homing In on the White House

With thousands of American families losing their homes to foreclosure every week, it's depressing to see presidential candidates in a food fight about how many residences John McCain possesses and how much help Barack Obama got from a fixer in buying his own.

Technically, McCain may be homeless, since none of the eight places he hangs his hat belongs to him but to his wife, children and trusts she controls, but haggling about that may strike voters desperate to avoid losing the places they live as not quite relevant to their concerns.

The hoo-ha about homes is symptomatic of the freefall from focusing on issues and turning the election into a barroom brawl that Rovian Republicans started with their attack ads and McCain's badmouthing of Obama to which the Democrats are now responding with kneecapping of their own.

Ironically, it was Cindy McCain, owner of the houses and condos in question, who started out by making it clear that she and her husband kept their finances separate and that she had no intention of telling the world about her own.

At the same time, she was adamant that, after all the sliming her family suffered in 2000, that this campaign would be different.

“We'd rather not win than to have to do that,” Mrs. McCain said last spring. “That's not worth winning for. This is about being a leader and a person that can be a good example for our children, and a good role model. There are many, many, many more things to this job than just being the president. You are an example. You have to--you have to be better than that. You have to be.”

She said she had asked her husband after the 2000 race not to try again for the presidency if it meant enduring all the attacks and slanders. But here we are, and this time it's John McCain who has found a home with the Republican politics of personal destruction.

'08 Spoiler Alert

He wants to be the Ralph Nader of 2008, but the fact that Bob Barr has already filled the position is not deterring him.

The Spoiler of 2000, who originally said he would run because he hates the Clintons, is now accusing Barack Obama of trying to "talk white." From anyone but today's loony Nader, that might be seen as racist, but it's hard to take umbrage at someone who has talked himself into the shadows of history but refuses to go quietly.

In what amounts to a political obituary, the Washington Post limns the pathetic figure Ralph Nader has become, noting that a biographer "searched for evidence of Nader's personal life and came up with nothing. Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, called Nader 'a rebel without a life.'"

Meanwhile, Bob Barr has taken up Ron Paul's mantle as the Libertarian scourge and is threatening to cause serious damage to the Republicans, perhaps doing to McCain in Georgia this year what Nader did back then to Al Gore in Florida.

Barr, a former House member who disappeared without trace, was in the spotlight briefly as the relentless Inspector Javert of the Clinton impeachment, who later filed a $30 million lawsuit against the former President, James Carville and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt for causing him "emotional distress" in retaliation.

But this year he is hounding Republicans by getting on the ballot in 30 states, with petition drives under way in 20 others. In close races, he could bring McCain down.

This year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have shown that almost anyone can run for president. Nader and Barr are proving you don't even have to be certifiably sane to do it.

An Affair to Remember

John McCain is cheating on voters with George Bush, but he's not good at it, getting caught in a quickie at the Phoenix airport before going off for their fund-raising tryst at a Scottsdale hideaway.

Barack Obama, the public moralist, ratted out the couple during an appearance in Las Vegas: “John McCain is having a different kind of meeting...behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras, no reporters. And we all know why."

History shows it's hard for candidates to run away from their past. In 2000, to take voters' minds off Monica Lewinsky, Al Gore ran a Clinton-free campaign and may have lost the election as a result.

McCain's problem is even stickier. He has to hide his love child with Bush, the war in Iraq, while persuading voters about his superior political morality and the advantage of his experience over Obama's naivete.

There has never been any love lost between McCain and Bush since their disastrous encounters in the 2000 primaries but, like many couples with a history, they find it hard to stay away from each other.

In common with employees of the Washington Madam, McCain can tell himself he's only doing it for the money, but we know how that turned out.

Bush has been a stealth president for some time, so it may be possible to keep their connection furtive for now. But the real test will come in September: Will they be seen together at the Republic convention?

Supreme Indifference

Just as the '08 election heads for a Democratic-Republican choice, Antonin Scalia comes out from behind the robes to tell us on 60 Minutes this weekend to stop moping about the Supreme Court's award of the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000.

"Get over it," he says in an interview with Lesley Stahl. "It’s so old by now." He may be right. The war in Iraq, the wrecking of our economy, the usurping of traditional American legal rights are so yesterday.

But Scalia himself is a living reminder of what's at stake in this year's election beyond all the mumbo-jumbo of the campaigns--the president's power to name Supreme Court Justices.

If Obama or Clinton is in the White House, it probably won't be someone who goes duck-hunting with Dick Cheney as he is considering a case over the Vice President's meetings with industry officials, including Enron's Ken Lay, while formulating the Administration's energy policy.

Meanwhile, not to worry about Scalia's role on the Court: "I am a law-and-order guy," he tells Stahl. "I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases."

Now that is something it make take some time to get over.

3972 Reasons for Nader Not to Run

John Roberts, Samuel Alito and US fatalities in Iraq head the list of what might have been avoided if America's crusader had stayed off the ballot in 2000 and not provided George W. Bush with the margins he needed to win the White House.

Now here he is again, on Meet the Press, puffing away at the importance of third-party candidates in pushing Democrats and Republicans toward ideological purity, pooh-poohing the complaint that he gave us a President who has tilted the Supreme Court away from what Nader's admirers believe and into a war that he and they deplore.

In declaring his candidacy yet again, Nader, who will be 74 this week, is in a dead heat with Ann Coulter for becoming this year's foremost example of Reverse Attention Deficit Disorder, the compulsive need to preen for TV cameras at any cost.

What they have in common is Hillary Clinton. Coulter claims she would support her rather than John McCain, and Nader would do anything to keep another Clinton out of the White House.

Of the two, Coulter is a more benign case, providing only passing amusement in her quest for attention. Nader is a self-deluded disgrace who might pose an actual danger of electing Bush's anointed successor if it were not for the comforting fact that he drew less than half of one percent of the vote in 2004.

Al Gore: Revenge of the Nerd

After years of being bullied by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and the jocks of the Supreme Court, this may be Al Gore's moment to exercise his muscle.

In the gathering storm over the Democratic nomination, the non-violent Gore is increasingly seen as the one figure who might mediate the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who could overcome divisions about superdelegates and the seating of the Florida and Michigan phantom contingents.

Gore, according to today's New York Times, "has been lobbied hard for an endorsement by allies of Mrs. Clinton and of Mr. Obama.

"Although it is not clear what role their past may play in his decision, Mr. Gore and the Clintons have a complicated, sometimes intense history, and Mr. Obama’s strength in the presidential race could make it even more complicated.

"Some of Mr. Gore’s allies have complained bitterly that Mr. Clinton concentrated more on Mrs. Clinton’s Senate run in 2000 than on getting Mr. Gore elected president. For his part, Mr. Clinton was surprised and hurt that Mr. Gore did not enlist him on the campaign trail in the final weeks of the presidential campaign."

Those wounds from the campaign that gave us eight years of George W. Bush may still be sore but should also motivate Democrats not to let anything like it happen again.

For the moment, Gore is watching warily from the sidelines, but the man who once claimed to have invented the Internet should be smart enough to get the warring factions of his party to communicate about ways to come together and retake the White House.

Clinton-Obama: Loser Takes All?

With Barack Obama's Saturday sweep, are the Democrats headed for their own version of Bush-Gore 2000 in which the candidate with the most popular votes ends up losing?

Using the latest available tallies from CNN and Time, my calculator shows Obama ahead of Clinton by 168,721 votes of 15,854,593 cast on Super Tuesday and in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nebraska, Louisiana, Kansas, Washington, Nevada and the Virgin Islands. (He won in Iowa, too, but the popular vote there is a mystery.)

If this trend continues, as it may very well do, Hillary Clinton could lose in the popular voting but win the Democratic nomination as a result of what 796 Super Delegates decide, just as George W. Bush moved into the White House in 2001 based on what nine members of the Supreme Court ruled.

In a year of strong feelings, would such a situation lead to a contentious convention like the one in 1968 that tore the Democratic Party apart and led to the election of Richard Nixon by less than one percent of the vote in November?

I was there as an alternate delegate in Chicago to be tear-gassed by the police of Democratic Mayor Richard Daley, which, to my lasting shame, led to the decision to vote for Hubert Humphrey but not campaign for him, as did others I knew.

Over the years, Democrats have found many ways to lose elections they might have won. Will we find a new one this year?

Nader, Bloomberg in "David and Goliath"

Now that his second favorite candidate, John Edwards, has dropped out, Ralph Nader is feeling an irresistible urge to pick up the fallen standard and hurl himself once again into the breach.

Ironically, Nader's inner struggle is reported by Bloomberg.com, part of the business news empire that made New York's mayor a billionaire who is, albeit silently, having the same crisis of conscience about saving the nation with an Independent run.

Inverting their physical attributes, Nader and Bloomberg would be playing David and Goliath in a sideshow of the '08 electoral circus to prove that (a) corporate America is crushing its people or (b) only a corporate genius can straighten out the mess Bush is leaving behind.

"Look at the major areas of injustice, deprivation and solutions that are not being addressed by the major candidates," Nader tells a Bloomberg reporter while denying that his 97,488 votes in Florida elected George W. Bush who won the state by just 537 votes over Al Gore in 2000.

Calling him a spoiler, Nader says, "is basically saying that small candidates are second-class citizens."

If Nader takes his pathological hatred of the Clintons into the arena this time, he won't be traveling in even that much style if Bloomberg comes in, too. Billionaires always go first-class and don't leave much space for anyone else.

The McCain Mutiny

Now that he is the Republican front runner again (talk about Comeback Kids!), John McCain has a bull's eye on his back for all manner of Conservatives, and today's Washington Post recites the litany.

"For at least eight years," the Post reports, "official Republican Washington has been dominated by what McCain advocates have called President Bush's 'Death Star'--an array of advocacy groups and lobbyists that backed Bush in 2000 and have remained the city's conservative power brokers.

"Republican politicians with national ambitions genuflect to (David) Keene at his Conservative Political Action Conference. They sign (Grover) Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes and attend the weekly conservative conclaves over which he presides as the head of Americans for Tax Reform. And they curry favor with religious conservatives such as Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition."

At one time or another, McCain has poked a finger in the eye of these king makers with his position on issues, as the executive director of Gun Owners of America points out. "I can tell you every single immigration activist and organization is terrified by the New Hampshire results," says the executive director of an "immigration reduction" group.

If Huckabee and Thompson fail to keep McCain from taking South Carolina, all these idealists will be put to a severe reality test. At the moment, Sen. Jim DeMint is backing Romney there, but John McCain's Baghdad traveling companion and likely running mate, Lindsey Graham, will be trying to tip the scales in his favor.

In 2000, Karl Rove bushwhacked McCain there, but that kind of ambush is not in the cards this time.

The Spoiler-in-Chief Speaks Out

John Edwards' Ralph Nader impersonation has paid off, at least with the original himself who has converted his Hillary hatred into embracing the multi-millionaire negligence lawyer with hedge-fund backing who has spent the last month in Iowa reincarnating himself as the angry fighter against corporate interests.

After ritual bashing of Sen. Clinton as a candidate whose experience consists of "going soft on cracking down on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse," Nader has given Edwards a ringing endorsement by allowing that he saw a "glimmer of hope" in his new best friend.

Those who recall how Nader handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 will be grateful that he has chosen a surrogate this time to subvert Democrats' chances for winning the White House rather than doing the job himself.

As an undistinguished one-term senator who voted to go to war in Iraq, Edwards is almost as innocent of actual political experience as his new backer, but he has learned well how to strike poses and euchre idealistic voters into throwing away their chances to pick a president. Nader has passed the torch to a worthy Spoiler-in-Chief.

If Bill Had Been Faithful to Hillary...

How different would the American political landscape look today?

The question is raised anew by the sight of the former President taking over the spotlight to try to save his wife's candidacy with trademark meaning-of-is-is talk about Obama's inexperience and his own opposition to the war in Iraq from the get-go.

"Maybe," Maureen Dowd suggests, "the Boy Who Can’t Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well."

The conjugal question comes up, too, in the new issue of Newsweek. Sally Bedell Smith, author of a book about the Clinton marriage, writes about the health-car debacle in 1993: "When Bill tried to make the plan more flexible, he had to defer to her, in part because of their implicit marital bargain, in which Bill ceded her power as a trade-off for his history of infidelity."

It's impossible to talk about Bill Clinton's character without running into a polarizing political buzz saw--vast right-wing conspiracy vs. moral depravity in the Oval Office--but the connection between the impeachment, the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s and Al Gore's narrow defeat in 2000 are too important to be swept into the dust bin of history, particularly with the prospect of both Clintons returning to the White House.

Today's New York Times notes that "during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled."

A year ago, the former President reacted with fury to a TV mini-series portraying him as so distracted then that he failed to focus on the emerging threat of Osama bin Laden. Yet, the program's advisor was 9/11 Commission chairman Tom Kean, and there is evidence that Clinton might have done more about bin Laden if not for fear of public reaction that attacking him might be seen as a "wag the dog" diversion from the impeachment.

Replaying Bill Clinton's record as a serially straying husband would be mean-spirited and pointless now if his wife were not now claiming spousal experience as justification and preparation for her own presidency.

But, in that light, it's not only proper but necessary to ask, how different might our lives be today if Bill Clinton had managed to be a faithful husband during those White House years? And what kind of distraction could he be if voters sent the Clintons back there for another four years?

The Prudent President

The compassionate conservative who ran in 2000 lost his empathy on the way to the White House but, after years of spending for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, is belatedly rediscovering his fiscal prudence--about health insurance for children, school aid and public housing.

Bush's latest act of compassionate conservatism is to deny funding for the Social Security Administration that would cut delay of financial aid to the disabled, many of whom now have to wait years to have their claims adjudicated.

As a New York Times editorial points out today, "the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000. The average wait for an appeals hearing now exceeds 500 days, twice as long as applicants had to wait in 2000.

"Typically two-thirds of those who appeal eventually win their cases. But during the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing."

After Congress last month passed a bill to give Social Security $275 million more than he requested, enough to hire judges to speed up the process, the President vetoed as profligate an amount that wouldn't pay for a day of the war in Iraq.

What would America be like if we had elected an unfeeling liberal (as many disaffected Democrats believe we actually did) in 2000 rather than the compassionate conservative who is setting our priorities now?

Making Do With Mukasey

An old saying, "The perfect is the worst enemy of the good enough," comes to mind in the Senate struggle over the nomination of Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

As the best choice we are likely to get from the Bush thugs who trashed the Justice Department, his confirmation would make more sense than holding it up with a prolonged debate over the legality of torture. That question can be settled by a Congressional vote to ban it.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a New York Times Op Ed today, points out, "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."

Schumer adds: "Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering--and I hope we will soon pass-- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law."

As compromises go, this is far from the worst in recent memory. At the risk of re-opening old wounds, we might recall the purists who voted for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 and gave us George Bush and this mess, among so many others.

No Tyranny of the Majority in the Bush Era

John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville can rest easy about “the tyranny of the majority.”

After being elected by less than a plurality of voters in 2000, George W. Bush has kept America safe from majority rule. After yesterday’s vote, 341 members of Congress had voted to expand children’s health insurance, 187 against, but the President’s veto stands to safeguard us against the folly of mob rule.

If the polls are accurate, seven out of ten Americans want us to get out of Iraq, as do a majority of their representatives, but the President is having none of that panic to do what’s popular.

"A man with God is always in the majority," John Knox declared in the sixteenth century, and Thoreau proclaimed the American counterpart, "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one."

You don’t see them much any more, but five years ago, there were bumper stickers everywhere that said “Thank God for President Bush.”

As he approaches his final year of protecting us from ourselves, Bush should find comfort in de Tocqueville’s judgement: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”