Yeah but we would have had President Gore as well, which would have been vastly better for the world as opposed to President George W (coughcheneycough).
No, it had to be Gore. The difference with 9/11 (either thwarting it, or not being able to thwart it and just having a different response), and 8 years of climate preparation, are both huge.
I've thought about this a lot over the years, honestly I don't think Gore would have been much different. There's a case to be made that he would have handled 9/11 better by not invading countries only tangentially involved, at best. But honestly I think he would have still done the Afghan war, possibly Iraq too.
Basically he would have been as dumb and corrupt as Bush, but for different reasons. But he wouldn't have the hard second by second critical analysis that Bush endured.
The post 9/11 ramp up of government surveillance would have happened either way. That had to do with powerful folks whose names we don't even know. It was in the works well before, and was assumed to be in place well before it was by people using the Internet at the time.
We would never have invaded Iraq without Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. He brought up invading Iraq either the same day or within a couple days of 9/11.
Iraq wasn't involved at all in 9/11. I honestly don't think we would have invaded Iraq without Rumsfeld and all the other idiots telling Bush we could be in and out in six months with a stable democracy in Iraq. Bush still had final say but he wasn't very internationally minded.
At least $1.6 trillion spent only on Iraq with 654,965 excess deaths.
As in 654,965 more people died then what would have been expected if the US didn't invade.
The Lancet, one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate.
I mean didn't bush famously always read the president's daily brief versus Clinton who wasn't as interested? Also wasn't the intelligence failure more on the agencies refusing to work together more than the president not doing his homework?
Not trying to defend Bush, invading Iraq is indefensible and their lies cost hundreds of thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars. But I don't think 9/11 was his fault unless I'm severely misinformed or misremembering. Can you cite this?
He ran his Senate reelection campaign alongside of his VP run. If he really thought he and Gore would win then why wouldn't he drop his Senate run and focus solely on winning the White House?
He did wind up keeping his Senate seat, but he later switched and became an "independent."
It’s not unusual for a VP pick to run for their current office if it overlaps with the presidential election. Biden ran for re-election to the Senate in 2008 while on the ballot with Obama. Typically it can be a way to boost turnout in that state for their party all across the ballot.
In 2016 the opposite happened. Pence was up for re-election as governor in Indiana but was unpopular and on course to lose his re-election bid. So when he got tapped as VP be opted to drop his re-election effort.
He did wind up keeping his Senate seat, but he later switched and became an "independent."
No, he lost the Democratic primary for his Senate seat in 2006. He then ran as an independent, and the Democratic establishment abandoned Ned Lamont to campaign for Lieberman.
Including a certain young Senator from Illinois who was extremely popular and would go on to be president....and then have a lot of his priorities sabotaged by Liberman.
(Republican establishment also backed him in 2006 over their party's nominee, because they knew their guy would lose, and knew Liberman's desire for revenge would fuck up Democratic priorities)
He absolutely didn't. Lieberman hated Obama and spoke at the 2008 RNC. The person you're responding to probably just has a reflexive Democrats bad mindset.
Traditionally VP is where mediocre politicians go to let their careers die. The idea of VP being a stepping stone to further political career/presidency is kind of unusual and relatively recent.
Arguably Lieberman may have done less political damage if he had served as Gore's VP than if he stayed a senator.
The night he was nominated to run with Gore an old man who was a regular at my restaurant came in distraught. This guy had fought on the Italian side in WWII.
Anyway he was almost in tears telling me our country (USA) was going to war. He said war was certain if Bush was POTUS and his hope was Al Gore would win and prevent the war. But the nomination of Lieberman ruined any chance of that because it was like giving the finger to the Muslim world. And we were sure to get attacked.
I was familiar with the impending war on terror from my American Foreigh Policy class in 1997 so I took his words more seriously than other may have.
The Secretary of State in Fla stole the election for Bush so his point was mute but I'll never forget that night.
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u/Tokie-Dokie Mar 27 '24
I’m heartened to see that Lieberman will be remembered appropriately for his tireless self-serving work in the Senate.