Just go away, please:
“For the president of the United States to claim in a television ad that those who disagreed with the decision to go to war with Iraq are against attacking terrorists is a disgrace,” said Gore, who lost the 2000 election to President Bush.
“It is a cheap and petty political tactic not worthy of the presidency.”
Neither, apparently, are you. Can’t he just go the way of Mondale and Dukakis and all the other Democrat retreads?
JKC
John-
Maybe you should avoid shooting the messenger. A lot of principled opposition to the war was based on the opinion that Iraq was the wrong target at the wrong time. To call that unpatriotic (ot to imply that that criticism equates to being “soft on terrorism”) is a bit over the top.
greg
It was also a bit over the top for an organization (NAACP) that is nothing more than a subsidiary of the Democratic party to claim that opposition to a hate-crimes bill is almost like lynching someone a second time, but I didn’t hear Gore complain then.
JKC
Greg-
Republicans have been just as guilty as the NAACP of overusing the word “lynching.” (See the recent scuffle over Bush’s 6 failed judicial nominees.)
Maybe I didn’t make my point clear: this isn’t about Al Gore. It’s about demonizing dissent. I know both parties have done it. It’s still wrong.
JPS
JKC, I’d agree with you, but I don’t see where the ad questions anyone’s patriotism, or equates criticism with being soft on terrorism. It questions the judgment of the president’s (big-picture) critics. It questions how effective their alternative policies would be. That shouldn’t be beyond the pale.
I happen to believe that the Democratic candidates would pursue policies that would leave us in much greater long-term danger. (You might disagree, and fair enough.) It doesn’t follow that I accuse them of wanting disaster–just of unwittingly facilitating it.
Ripper
What ‘demonizing dissent?’ The ad states that some are attacking the president for attacking the terrorists. That statement is indisputably true. If the Democrats are so shaky in their own support of the WoT as to believe the statement applies to them, it’s not the RNCs fault.
If they think the voting public will hear the ad and assume the RNC is talking about Democrats – well, whose fault is that?
And as has been noted many times before, the party that lies about Bush wanting to put arsenic into drinking water, Newt wanting Medicare to ‘wither on the vine,’ Max Cleland losing because he was called unpatriotic and cajoles James Byrd’s daughter into crying that it felt like her father was lynched all over again when Bush refused to sign hate crime legislation has NO moral high ground to stand on when the GOP grows some stones and starts hitting back at them.
HH
“Republicans have been just as guilty as the NAACP of overusing the word ‘lynching.’ (See the recent scuffle over Bush’s 6 failed judicial nominees.)”
Zell’s a Dem.
Oliver
Yeah, that damn Gore. How dare more people vote for him than Mondale, Dukakis, etc. How dare former vice presidents open their mouths!(but only if they’re democrats…)
TheDude
Democrats making things up again, there’s nothing in the commercial that impughns anyone’s patriotism. Such thin skins these Dems have. Or is it perhaps they feel guilty? Hmmmmmm….
Kimmitt
This is absurdity. The ad is very clear in its implications — that those who attack the President’s decisions on how to deal with the security threats which terrorism presents are uninterested themselves in trying to deal with those security threats.
The RNC doesn’t run ads targetting the Socialist Party of the United States. It runs ads targetting Democratic politicians. Any attack made is implictly on that body of persons — and, during a Presidential election campaign, also implicitly on Democratic candidates for President. You know this as well as I do.
John Cole
Yeah, that damn Gore. How dare more people vote for him than Mondale, Dukakis, etc.
So I take it that if Bush loses this election, you will never complain if he snipes the next President daily?
Also, Oliver, you no longer have an excuse for your ignorance. You are now living in one of the original 13 colonies- the birthplace of modern American democracy. It is such a pity you still have not taken the time to learn about the Electoral College, the popular vote, and how it works.
Kimmitt
“So I take it that if Bush loses this election, you will never complain if he snipes the next President daily?”
If he waits a couple years for the President to get settled in, then let him do his thing. Gore did a pretty good job of balancing a citizen’s right and responsibility to criticize with the civility of a man who held high office previously and should make way for his successor. I found it classy.
Arash
Gore should stop talking when the right stops bitching about Clinton.