Stumped is a kind of political Dear Abby, where people write in to ask an Informed, Serious Expert questions about the political world that they, a lowly citizen, cannot possibly know, as they don't live in Washington or go to the right parties with the right government officials. Anyway, this week's question is about what would have happened if Al Gore won the Presidency. The writer asserts that there would have been no 9/11 and no wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. Andres Martinez's response, "are you right about all of this? I think not." In fact, despite the fact the he says he agrees Al Gore should have been President, he finds this sentiment to be "kind of creepy." Its creepy to imagine how nice the world would have been with a competent leader?
Unfortunately, it only deteriorates from here. Martinez spends his first paragraph of substantive argument fighting a straw man. He finds the letter's comments about 9/11 vague and so he wants to dismiss the notion that "al Qaeda wouldn't have attacked an America presided over by a more benevolent President Gore." No one suggested this idea, because it is ridiculous. Al Qaeda doesn't base its decisions to attack based on who's President (something I think we should all keep in mind, given the way McCain's rhetoric has gone so far). "That is patently absurd," says Martinez to no one in particular. For the very first paragraph of argument, Martinez sets up an easily disprovable argument that no one has made and then easily disproves it, making the person he's arguing against seem ridiculous even though that person never made such an argument to begin with.
Now that Martinez has made the person he's debating seem foolish, he begins to address the actual concerns of the letter. According to Martinez, the idea that Gore could have stopped 9/11:
blends irrational partisanship with that quintessentially American belief that all tragedies -- whether on the playground or elsewhere -- are eminently preventable.
Actually, the argument is predicated on the notion that the administration ignored evidence of a rising threat from al Qaeda, probably because they were more worried about finding a way to invade Iraq and get access to that sweet, sweet oil. Martinez points out the famous "Bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States" security memo that Bush treated with the same attention that I'm currently giving to Jane Austen's Persuasion. But it was okay! says Martinez, because "none of this was terribly ground-breaking." Really? I remember George Bush "nobody in our government at least, and I don't the think the prior government, could envision flying air planes into buildings." Certainly, I had never imagined such a thing was possible, and if I couldn't then no one could, right?
In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.
One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center.
Also, that report was not the no-shit-Sherlock kind of report that Martinez describes it as. Instead it contained the claim that "FBI information... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country, consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attack."
This is not to say that Hypothetical President Gore would have 100% been able to stop the 9/11 attacks. However, what I am trying to argue is that Martinez's interpretation is childlike in its simplicity and fails to take into account the fact that there was a legitimate amount of concerning information. Information that, perhaps in the hands of someone competent, could have been used to stop an attack.
If this were the end of Martinez's article, it would have been stupid, but not the kind of "you've crushed my soul stupid" that would inspire a long rant. However he goes on to make one of the dumbest claims I've ever seen. Assuming 9/11 happened under President Gore, Martinez still thinks we would have invaded Iraq. Think about that for a moment. Martinez is so diluded that he still sees the Iraq War as a natural response to 9/11. According to Martinez:
it is easy for us now to forget how much the 9/11 attacks weighed on the initial decision to take on Iraq at a time when Saddam Hussein was acting like another looming threat.
Anyone over the age of 18 and not suffering from amnesia should be able to remember the run-up to the Iraq War with relative clarity, especially if said person's job is following the political world and then commenting on it. Apparently, in Martinez's world, in late 2002 the vast majority of the American public suddenly demanded an invasion of Iraq. The Bush Administration tried to explain that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, but the American public just wouldn't be satisfied. So, reluctantly and with great sadness, the Bush Administration began an invasion of Iraq.
Yeah, something about that just doesn't seem right. I seem to remember there being an orchestrated effort by the Bush Administration to tie Iraq to 9/11 and al Qaeda, with Cheney going on Meet the Press to claim that Iraq is "the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9-11."
If only there were some archive which documented this massive public relations effort.
And what did Al Gore say during all of this:
I am deeply concerned that the policy we are presently following with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.
That's in 2002.
In the law, there is no distinction between a lie and reckless disregard for the truth. Therefore, I have no problem saying that Mr. Martinez lied to his readers when saying that the Iraq War was an inevitability, regardless of who was President. This may not seem like much in the big picture, but it is important that people understand the history of the Iraq War so we do not repeat the mistakes we made. When people like Mr. Martinez publish articles like this, they serve to help the Bush Administration by taking the blame away from them for lying and manipulating their way into an illegal war for profit. It is also important because this example demonstrates the excellent judgement Al Gore has shown in the past. If we had listened to Al Gore in 2002, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
P.S. So the political stuff doesn't start to dominate, I want to mention that all three amendments to the FISA bill have failed, meaning that the bill will pass with Teleco Immunity and with it will go the fourth amendment and the notion that we are all equal under the law. Almost 35 years after Watergate, Richard Nixon's notion that the President can do anything he wants and its legal because he's the President has gone from a fringe view to the stated policy of this country.
