Can someone here please respond to this garbage that was printed in the Charleston Daily Mail about Gore? I'm packing to go away and don't have time to compose a good letter. Can someone else please take care of this one? Send a letter to the editor at editor@dailymail.com

http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2006071326/

Don Surber:
President Gore would have been no dream

Thursday July 13, 2006

AS his film draws viewers from red states, blue states and in-between states, Al Gore has turned the Hollywood-star-gone-political thing around.

Maybe Hollywood is where he belongs, because he looks presidential, sounds somber, and can read the lefty script without cracking up in laughter.

When Hollywood needs a presidential cameo and Morgan Freeman is unavailable, Gore can pop in there. He can be taken far more seriously than Martin Sheen, no matter how hard Sheen scrunches his eyebrows.

Which is good, because Gore would have made a terrible president.

He blew all credibility forever when he called George W. Bush to concede the race like a gentleman, only to call back an hour later to inform Bush that he was going to throw the biggest political tantrum in history.

Gore's willingness to go back on his word so quickly may explain why so many Democrats were less than enthusiastic about him in 2000.

Not that Bush made Republicans jitterbug.

But all things considered, Bush was the better choice. For all their quacking about him, liberals got more out of Bush than they would have from Gore.

Gore would have had to deal with a Republican Congress.

The easygoing Bill Clinton had all sorts of problems adjusting to Republicans running the legislative branch.

Clinton shut down the government in 1995 in a feud with the Republicans over a bill that ironically led to the very balanced budget two years later that Democrats now say was the highlight of the Clinton administration.

The uptight Gore would have been lost, even with Democrats controlling the Senate for his first two years in office.

He might have had to give two-hour State of the Union speeches several times a year to get his point across.

Forget the Kyoto agreement. It requires two-thirds approval of the Senate. I doubt Gore could have held all 50 Democratic senators at the time, let alone have convinced 17 Republicans to go along.

The rest of his legislative package would have been a thud.

President Bush was able to get Republicans to go along with the McCain-Feingold campaign restrictions. I doubt Gore could have secured Republican votes for this bill.

As to Medicare prescription coverage, again, Bush was able to pass his plan despite deep reluctance by Republicans. I doubt Gore would have been able to get his much more expensive plan out of committee.

Bush was able to work with Ted Kennedy to pass No Child Left Behind. I cannot see Gore having working with, say, Orrin Hatch to pass that national registry of gun owners that Gore wanted.

No tax cuts for the rich would have meant continuance of the marriage penalty and the death tax. Tax credits for children would have remained at $600 instead of $1,000.

No tax cuts would also have extended and deepened the recession that was signaled when the stock market peaked in August 2000. The national unemployment rate would be far higher than the 4.6 percent enjoyed in June.

As to the war, Gore likely would have avoided sending troops to Iraq. I doubt he would have sent troops to Afghanistan.

He would have sought some sort of international sanctions and bombed the people of both nations from high above, as was done in Bosnia.

With Saddam Hussein still in power, business would have continued as usual in the oil industry, and Hussein would still be in the business of killing Iraqis. A regime that executed 300,000 people at a minimum would have added to its toll with little notice from the rest of the world.

As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal article, getting cheap oil is easy; all one has to do is pay off the local dictator.

Maybe Gore could have convinced Americans that the problem was Congress and have helped Democrats gain control of the House and keep control of the Senate in 2002.

That might have allowed him to raise gasoline taxes by 50 cents to reduce consumption. Of course, the price has risen by $1.50 or more under Bush without much effect on driving.

Maybe under Gore we would not have been hit again. Maybe not. It is a chance I am glad we did not have to take.