Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
National Gore's Impeachment by Gert Innsry Our correspondent, returning from a recent trip to GOPLand, found herself in an alternate reality in which Al Gore not only won the 2000 election. but became President. After some confusion as to where she was, Ms. Innsry managed to put together the following history and get it back to our reality by tying it to the tail of Schroedinger's cat. She is still trying to find her way home.
In the year 2000, Al Gore was elected President by a mere 500,000 votes, with Florida's contested votes putting him over the top in the Electoral College. Over the howls of the Republicans, and a particularly nasty campaign waged by them in the courts and on TV to overturn the results, he was inaugurated on a windy January day. His inaugural speech, calling for universal health care, a prescription drug benefit, and more effective taxation of multinational corporations to fund social security when the baby boomers retire, was greeted by the right with cries of "creeping socialism" and a prediction of huge deficits and a ruined economy.
The collapse of the dot-com boom turned the enormous surpluses of his predecessor to a small deficit, and President Gore was assailed by the Republicans as a tax-and-spend liberal whose policies were bankrupting the nation. By going over the head of the Republican Congress directly to the people, Gore managed to get a stimulatory tax cut for the middle class to perk up the staggering economy and prevent a recession. This further enlarged the deficit and predictions of a 15 billion dollar shortfall were made by the fiscal conservatives.
The fiscal wrangling continued until September 11, 2001. With the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and the attack on the Pentagon, the US was stunned into a sense of unity and resolve. Republicans and Democrats united in their desire for revenge against the perpetrators of these acts of terrorism. President Gore's immediate presence in New York, promising aid for the city and swift justice for the victims, was seen as extraordinary leadership. His standing in the polls, sinking since his inauguration, rebounded.
Nevertheless, his ultimatum to Afghanistan to give up the Al Qaeda members operating from that country met with opposition from Republican conservatives, They charged that going to war would embroil the US in an endless struggle overseas, that the costs would create huge deficits, and that, absent a Congressional declaration of war, the President had no authority to commit US troops to the invasion of a sovereign nation. Tom DeLay, Senate Majority Leader, said in a speech on the Senate floor, “I will not permit American lives to be jeopardized to cover up the national security failings of the previous Democratic President, nor to advance the internationalist ambitions of the current Democratic President.”
A Joint Resolution passed both houses of Congress deploring the cowardly attack on our soil, admonishing the President that his first duty to the nation is to protect and defend it, but specifically forbidding the use of defense appropriations for the attack of another nation without a formal Declaration of War. Following the passage of the resolution, President Gore ordered the CIA to attack Al Qaeda headquarters in Afghanistan and kill or capture the Al Qaeda leadership. Within two weeks, the attack had taken place, and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed, along with most of the Al Qaeda high command. Thirty seven Americans died as well, and one hundred fifty more were captured by Taliban forces despite the efforts of US helicopter pilots to extract the expeditionary force. The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, declared Jihad against the US.
The American public had mixed feelings about the Afghanistan action. Elated that the engineers of the 9/11 atrocities were dead, they were nevertheless upset at the 150 operatives in captivity. There was a feeling that, somehow, the strike had been bungled, and comparisons were made by media pundits to the aborted Iranian hostage rescue ordered by Jimmy Carter. The President's approval rating dipped. “This is what comes of having a person with no military experience as commander in chief,” said Donald Rumsfeld, candidate Bush's choice for Secretary of Defence.
Tracing the financing of Al Qaeda's operations largely to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the President declared that any country funding terrorists is not a friend of the United States and will be treated accordingly. He called upon the Saudis to cease their flow of money to Al Qaeda and provide US intelligence with details as to the donors and recipients of such money. He called upon Pakistan to cut off Al Qaeda from Pakistani assistance and to reveal to the US the sources and recipients of these funds. Both nations refused these demands.
President Gore then announced the imposition of an immediate three-part program, to be maintained until the cooperation of these nations was ensured: a cut-off of all military aid to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; an embargo on Saudi oil, to be partially offset by releases from the US strategic oil reserve and increased purchases from non-Arabian sources; and an energy conservation program to reduce our dependance on petroleum. This program would include development of biofuels as petroleum substitutes, new milage requirements on all new cars sold in the US, funding for solar and wind power generation, and increased purchases of natural gas from Russia and Canada. Speed limits were to be lowered to the limits imposed during the oil crisis of the '70s.
Oil prices went to 22 Dollars per barrel on this announcement, and within two weeks, oil consumption had dropped 8%. OPEC nations, remembering the disaster to their economies that followed the 70's oil crunch after usage plummeted as a result of increased energy efficiencies, hastily convened to pressure Saudi Arabia to give the US what it asked for. The Saudi oil princes refused and left the meeting. Governor Bush assailed President Gore for the increase in oil prices, asserting that this would lead to world-wide recession, and demanding the opening of Alaskan and off-shore oil fields to exploitation that were currently closed for environmental reasons. Gore refused.
At the same time, he ordered the reorganization of intelligence gathering and analysis to eliminate departmental fiefdoms and improve coordination. The howls from Defense, the FBI, the CIA and the NSA were immediate. Republican congressional leaders, Governor Bush, Dick Cheney and the Cato Institute issued a joint statement calling these moves “a major step toward an imperial Presidency and a complete subversion of the Constitution.”
Congressional Republicans and some Democrats, under pressure from their campaign contributors, attempted to legislate a rollback of the Gore initiative. Public outcry and some members of both parties who saw the logic in Gore's actions, stalled the bills. Rumors started that the Afghan incursion was financed with defense department funds, in contravention of the law, and that American operatives had used “excessive pressure” to extract the location of Al Qaeda leaders. When Afghan authorities refused to treat our captured operatives according to the Geneva Convention, beheading some of them as a “lesson in justice”, the American public was outraged; conservatives spun this into a further drop in Gore's popularity and approval ratings. Gore asked for the support of the public “in a time when we are under attack and in a virtual war with our adversaries”. GOP response was that it isn't a war unless Congress says it is, and that the situation has been completely mishandled by the Administration. As Gore's standing declined, the judiciary committees in both the House and Senate opened investigations leading to impeachment, charging misuse of funds contrary to law and ultimate responsibility for the mistreatment of Afghan nationals, contrary to international law.
Committee leadership laid the mistreatment at the door of high Administration officials, and said that “America depends on our international treaties and the rule of law to keep our country safe. That safety has now been compromised by the actions of a few, who, following Administration guidelines, went beyond civilized bounds.” The Senate Judiciary voted for impeachment along party lines, and, in a straight party vote, the full house concurred after a brief debate.
During the trial before the Senate, oil prices went to the astounding level of $41 per barrel, inflation increased by two percentage points, and unemployment rose slightly. The President was convicted and removed from office. Thus, Joe Lieberman became the nation's first Jewish President. He immediately began to dismantle the conservation measures put in place by his predecessor.
Editor's Note: Ms. Innsry managed to find her way back to this reality using entangled photons and a mirror. After being brought up to date on the recent world and domestic situation, she is amazed that actions the Republicans considered impeachable in the alternate reality they consider praiseworthy in ours. I guess it's all according to whose ox is Gored.
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