PRESIDENT GORE: A LOOK BACK

A Classic Ted Rall -- Few political observers anticipated the widespread resentment that followed Al Gore's controversial assumption of the presidency in December 2000. "The U.S. Supreme Court merely adhered to the Constitution when it refused to hear Bush's appeal of the Florida ruling," notes a Harvard law professor now living in exile in France. "Federal courts have no jurisdiction over election disputes, which in the United States are a state matter." Although the ensuing recount ultimately gave Florida to Gore by a comfortable thousand-vote margin, Republicans refused to accept the results. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh continued to refer to Gore as "Vice President Gore" and "Resident-in-Chief" and listed the time remaining in Gore's first term as "days left in captivity for the American people."

Despite Gore's attempts to govern from the center--he appointed several Republicans to his cabinet, including Secretary of Defense Colin Powell --Congressional Republicans and their conservative Democratic allies stonewalled early Gore Administration attempts to deliver on key campaign promises. The Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty on global warming. Bills to slash federal taxes for poor and middle-class workers, ban oil drilling in national wildlife refuges and crack down on corporate crime failed to make it out of Republican-controlled committees in the House. Senator Trent Lott let the President know that he could expect more of the same in the future: "It is my party's duty to represent the 48 percent of the voters who did not support Al Gore, and that's exactly what we're going to do," he said.

Incredibly, the next move of the man dubbed "Gore out of control" by Fox News was to declare an unprovoked war on Iraq. "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, he's an evil dictator and he's a threat to world peace," Gore railed to a joint session of Congress. When the United Nations refused to support Gore's request for an international coalition, even Congressional Democrats decided that they had had enough of their bellicose leader, and joined their counterparts across the aisle. "There's no proof that Saddam Hussein has WMDs," declared Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. "Until that changes, we have no grounds for a preemptive strike--an act that violates every precept of international law." Nonetheless, Gore relied on the War Powers Act to order in the Marines.

As we know, Saddam Hussein didn't use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons to defend his dying regime. American forces never found any. And news soon began leaking that Gore was awarding lucrative Iraqi rebuilding contracts to oil companies that had contributed to his 2000 campaign. A Gallup poll showed that 88 percent of Americans considered Gore a liar, and that 79 percent favored his removal from office and prosecution for the wanton murder of thousands of Iraqis. As Iraq degenerated into sectarian violence amid growing signs of a possible radical Islamic revolution, Gore brazenly categorized the mayhem he had wrought on an innocent people as liberation. "They don't know it yet," he proclaimed, "but they'll thank us for this someday."