Gored

As part of my continuing quest to, as Sun Tsu urged, know the "enemy", I've been trying to read more left-wing blogs. By the way, I say "enemy" with a wink and a nudge; I grew up among liberals, I get along with them just fine, and I believe this nation really does need to learn how to debate civilly, without resorting to the sort of trashy name-calling that some of the lunatic fringe on the left and right get into.

That being said - oh, Lordy, there are truly some moonbats out there.

I read the left-blog "Counterspin", written by a fellow named "Hesiod" (and what's with the left-blogger fascination for pretentious pen names? Hesiod. Joshua Micah Marshall. Kos. Atrios Eschaton. My, my. Speaking purely apolitically, give me the right's simple, direct noms de plume - names like Instapundit, Rottweiler, Hindrocket, St. Paul, James and so on. But I digress).

"Hesiod" is under the impression that everything would be soooo much better if only Algore had won. And he bases this on the testimony of...

...Madeline Albrecht. The worst Secretary of State since Warren "Run Away!" Christopher.

"Hesiod" starts:

"GOING NUCLEAR: I think it's time to take the gloves off with the Bush administration and the GOP. It's so vitally important that Bush lose next year's election, I think we have to start using the big guns.

And that big gun is...

What do I mean? Well...we need more rhetoric like Madeline Albright's assertion that 9/11 wouldn't have happened under a President Gore.

"...rhetoric like...". Good start.

Do I know this is true? I think, intuitively, that at the very least a Gore administration would have taken the Al Qaeda problem seriously from the beginning, and wouldn't conducted a ridiculous 'policy review' for 7 months.

That's right - Algore, the consummate wonk, the man of a thousand studies, the most risk-averse politician since Bill Clinton, would have drastically parted from his sugadaddy's foreign policy. You know - the one that let Bin Laden walk not once, but several times.

"Intuitively", "Hesiod" "knows" this about Algore. Why?

No answer.

I do think they would have warned airlines, and airports about possible kamikaze hijackings when they had some credible intelligence about it 30 days before 9/11.

That's right. After years of "credible intelligence" about potential attacks (the type of "credible intelligence" that currently has the Threat Level bouncing around like a toddler on caffeine in a Moonwalk), an Algore administration would have magically picked that precise set of "credible intelligence" - from the veritable flood of "credible intelligence" that warns constantly of every sort of potential attack - and picked the right course of action?

Like Algore and Clinton did with the "credible evidence" before the first WTC bombing, the Mogadishu incident, the Khobar Towers bombing, the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the bombing of the USS Cole?

All this is leading up to one inescapable conclusion; "Hesiod" - and by extension, much of the moonbat, tinfoil-hat left - thinks that not only is Algore clairvoyant - they apparently believe themselves to have extrasensory powers as well!

"Hesiod"'s "intuition" tells him that, in direct contravention of all evidence in the record about the administration of which Algore was the adjutant executive, Algore would have reached into the big revolving drum of "credible intelligence" and, voila, picked "Al Quaeda, 9/11, in New York, with the Airplanes"!

Indeed, the next paragraph shows that "Hesiod" is taking a hit from the same rhetorical bong that Dionne Warwick bogarted:

They may also have better prepared domestic air defenses by deploying more fighter jets for intercept duties around high probability target areas. New York being an obvious one.

"May" have.

Right. And he "May" have "intuitively" figured out who the attackers were going to be, and been waiting at Logan Airport on the morning of 9/11 at the head of his crack squad of terrorbusters.

Hey, "Hesiod" is crediting Algore with near-supernatural powers. Why is my scenario any less credible, or entertaining, than his?

Would that have prevented the 9/11 attacks? Maybe not.

The hijackings and the loss of those planes, passengers and crews were probably unavoidable.

But, in my opinion, it probably would have prevented the WTC hits and possibly the Pentagon hits. The pilots would've been less likely to follow the orders of the hijackers, and the jets would have been closer and more able to intercept and down the airliners.

So let's get this straight, here: President Algore would have:

1. ..completely reversed the Clinton Administration's idiocy about terrorists,
2. magically divined the correct warning from the avalanche of informaiton that the CIA, to this day, is incapable of fully processing,
3. Decided that the attack was going to be "planes, in the Northeast, in the fall of '01",
4. broken with the Clinton Administration's, and his own, personal ignorance, disregard and disdain for all things military, and increased NORAD's alert level and resources (more planes, higher alert levels), and
5. ...Given all that in place, had the nerve on the morning of 9/11 to order NORAD to shoot down four US jetliners? This from a holdover from an administration that ran like a scared rabbit from Somalia, after an otherwise successful raid that cost 18 American soldiers?

Clairvoyance! It's the answer!

In essence, we'd probably be mourning four flight 93 style hijacking events, as opposed to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

Basically, you can make a case that Bush's negligence cost at least 2000 people their lives. Possible more.

Negligence? Or lack of superhuman perception?

And...since the GOP and the warfloggers have no moral prohibition about exploiting the deaths of those people to unfairly attack Democrats and Bill Clinton, why should we hold back such criticism from Bush...when it actually has some MERIT?

If I were as clairvoyant as "Hesiod", I'd probably know the answer to that.

I'm afraid I'd need to be clairvoyant to know why saying "Clinton let Bin Laden escape, both from the Sudan and from Quatar" is "Unfair", but saying "Bush let 9/11 happen" isn't. Anyone?

I say...repeat it loud and often. If nothing else it will drive the warfloggers and the GOP/Bush Fedayeen hacks bananas."

Actually, disposing of the "logic" behind "Hesiod" and Madeline Albrecht is fairly simple. What drives me "bananas" is that there is a large population of moonbats in this country that, like professional wrestling, Enquirer and Psychic Friends, think this sort of buncombe is in any way credible.

My own take on a hypothetical Gore Administration's hypothetical response to terror is no less fanciful, much more honestly sourced - and (if I say so myself) a much better read.

Your mileage may vary.

Posted by Mitch at September 17, 2003 10:09 AM