'Al Gore's war on terrorism?' By Hugh Hewitt

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Al Gore's war on terrorism?

This Independence Day is not your ordinary 7-4. Quite a lot has changed. Thousands of Americans have been killed by a malevolent enemy, and that enemy will be around for years to come trying to do the very same thing again and again.

There's "noise in the system" that the enemy will try to gin up another hit soon.

And there are thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the hunt for the enemy.

This is the biggest change from a year ago. The enemy was already there, plotting and scheming on July 4, 2001. But a year ago, they were confident of American weakness and certain of American impotence. They had been misled by an unbroken span of years of ineffectual American responses to previous outrages. They believed that all that would follow from any attack would be a missile or two.

Which brings me to Al Gore. He's a shameless hypocrite. And it is about time the American press began to call him on it.

Saturday night, Gore attacked the president for having let Osama bin Laden get away, and for refusing to allow sufficient international peacekeepers to take up posts in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Colin Powell responded to a tape of those remarks by labeling them "patent nonsense" and by noting that the previous administration "hadn't even made a serious try" to kill off the enemy. Powell's assessment was too mild.

Gore's attack has no parallel in American political history. Imagine Wendall Wilkie attacking FDR in September of 1942 for the failure of the United States Marines to have secured Guadalcanal. (The six-month battle for the island began on Aug. 7, eight months after Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor.) Wilkie would have been justly condemned by all quarters and marginalized as a reckless self-promoter, if not worse.

Imagine Neville Chamberlin attacking Churchill for the evacuation of Dunkirk, the fall of France, or for the failure to halt the Luftwaffe's bombs. A full year after assuming power from the incompetent Chamberlin, Churchill watched as the Nazis seized the key island of Crete. Chamberlin had died of cancer in November of 1940, but had he lived, it is inconceivable that he would have attacked Churchill then or at any time during the course of the war. Chamberlin, you see, had class – if not wisdom – and understood well his personal responsibility for the plight of Great Britain.

Gore, by contrast, is oblivious to his own record. His attack on the conduct of the war earned some tut-tuts from the punditry, but not one elected Democrat rose to blast him. When Gore accused President Bush of "using the war" for political purposes, he was, in fact, projecting his own ham-handed grandstanding onto the administration. "Chutzpah" has a new face.

It is easy enough to understand why Gore is trying this tactic. The Clinton administration is increasingly revealed as wholly incompetent in the war on terror. It turned down the chance to grab bin Laden when Sudan offered the master terrorist up. Gore was focused on global warming and not global warnings – on the cost of pills and not the price of appeasement.

Until Powell's smack-down of Gore on Sunday, the Bush administration had been content to look forward and to allow the Clinton-Gore team the opportunity to avoid an accounting for their reckless mismanagement of national security.

I hope Powell's example is the new order of the day. Too much nonsense is being spouted by the left to allow it to go unanswered.

It is one thing to see Democratic senator after Democratic senator condemn the out-of-control Ninth Circuit for its Pledge ruling while allowing the nominees to vacancies on that Court to sit for more than a year due to Leahy's blockade, and it is one thing to read Tom Daschle's hilarious assault on the president's economic policies when he blocked a Senate majority from permanently repealing the death tax. I can handle Paul Wellstone's moralism against the backdrop of his twice-made and twice-broken pledge to run for only two terms in the U.S. Senate, and I can even find some sympathy for an at-sea – and quite obviously scared – Maureen Dowd and her like-minded colleagues on the far left of syndication land.

But Al Gore lecturing Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld on how to run a war is too much. I hope the search begins in earnest now for Gore's role in the "war on terror" circa January 1993 to January 2001. Gore was there, remember, "the most powerful Vice President in history," the equal partner to the buffoon-in-chief – Mr. Kyoto, Mr. U.N.

On this Independence Day, as Americans are literally fighting and dying for our freedom, is it too much to ask for independence from blame-shifters and paper tigers? Is it too much to ask for a little shame?

Which brings me to Al Gore. He's a shameless hypocrite. And it is about time the American press began to call him on it.

* * *

Gore's attack has no parallel in American political history. Imagine Wendall Wilkie attacking FDR in September of 1942 for the failure of the United States Marines to have secured Guadalcanal... Wilkie would have been justly condemned by all quarters and marginalized as a reckless self-promoter, if not worse.

Take the above bites all together. What's the difference between America now and America in 1942? It's simple: The American press loved America then; the American press HATES America now (remember the flap on ABC when the big bosses commanded the on-air staff to stop wearing those little flags on their lapels and blouses?)

If the USA isn't going down the path in lock-step with the UN's grand design--multilateral treaties for everything, submission to the World Court, etc.--then America is on the "wrong track," according to these people, and thus they will stand by with tacit--sometimes overt--approval when someone criticizes GWB or anyone like him.

Don't look for any satisfaction in media condemnation of Gore; it's not going to happen. They're all fellow travelers trying to herd us to the Promised Land.

Be ever vigilant.

I went to WorldNetDaily and found no article entitled "Al Gore is a Liar. Al Gore id a shameless Hippocrite".
I did find a piece by Hugh Hewitt entitled "Al Gore's War on Terrorism", the text of which is identical to the one you posted.
Is there some reason you wish to consign Hugh Hewitt to the status of "worldnetdaily staff writer" instead of giving his name, which takes even less time to type?
See also, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28163:

Al Gore's war on terrorism?

Posted: July 3, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

This Independence Day is not your ordinary 7-4. Quite a lot has changed. Thousands of Americans have been killed by a malevolent enemy, and that enemy will be around for years to come trying to do the very same thing again and again.
There's "noise in the system" that the enemy will try to gin up another hit soon.
And there are thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the hunt for the enemy.
This is the biggest change from a year ago. The enemy was already there, plotting and scheming on July 4, 2001. But a year ago, they were confident of American weakness and certain of American impotence. They had been misled by an unbroken span of years of ineffectual American responses to previous outrages. They believed that all that would follow from any attack would be a missile or two.
Which brings me to Al Gore. He's a shameless hypocrite. And it is about time the American press began to call him on it.
Saturday night, Gore attacked the president for having let Osama bin Laden get away, and for refusing to allow sufficient international peacekeepers to take up posts in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Colin Powell responded to a tape of those remarks by labeling them "patent nonsense" and by noting that the previous administration "hadn't even made a serious try" to kill off the enemy. Powell's assessment was too mild.
Gore's attack has no parallel in American political history. Imagine Wendall Wilkie attacking FDR in September of 1942 for the failure of the United States Marines to have secured Guadalcanal. (The six-month battle for the island began on Aug. 7, eight months after Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor.) Wilkie would have been justly condemned by all quarters and marginalized as a reckless self-promoter, if not worse.
Imagine Neville Chamberlin attacking Churchill for the evacuation of Dunkirk, the fall of France, or for the failure to halt the Luftwaffe's bombs. A full year after assuming power from the incompetent Chamberlin, Churchill watched as the Nazis seized the key island of Crete. Chamberlin had died of cancer in November of 1940, but had he lived, it is inconceivable that he would have attacked Churchill then or at any time during the course of the war. Chamberlin, you see, had class – if not wisdom – and understood well his personal responsibility for the plight of Great Britain.
Gore, by contrast, is oblivious to his own record. His attack on the conduct of the war earned some tut-tuts from the punditry, but not one elected Democrat rose to blast him. When Gore accused President Bush of "using the war" for political purposes, he was, in fact, projecting his own ham-handed grandstanding onto the administration. "Chutzpah" has a new face.
It is easy enough to understand why Gore is trying this tactic. The Clinton administration is increasingly revealed as wholly incompetent in the war on terror. It turned down the chance to grab bin Laden when Sudan offered the master terrorist up. Gore was focused on global warming and not global warnings – on the cost of pills and not the price of appeasement.
Until Powell's smack-down of Gore on Sunday, the Bush administration had been content to look forward and to allow the Clinton-Gore team the opportunity to avoid an accounting for their reckless mismanagement of national security.
I hope Powell's example is the new order of the day. Too much nonsense is being spouted by the left to allow it to go unanswered.
It is one thing to see Democratic senator after Democratic senator condemn the out-of-control Ninth Circuit for its Pledge ruling while allowing the nominees to vacancies on that Court to sit for more than a year due to Leahy's blockade, and it is one thing to read Tom Daschle's hilarious assault on the president's economic policies when he blocked a Senate majority from permanently repealing the death tax. I can handle Paul Wellstone's moralism against the backdrop of his twice-made and twice-broken pledge to run for only two terms in the U.S. Senate, and I can even find some sympathy for an at-sea – and quite obviously scared – Maureen Dowd and her like-minded colleagues on the far left of syndication land.
But Al Gore lecturing Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld on how to run a war is too much. I hope the search begins in earnest now for Gore's role in the "war on terror" circa January 1993 to January 2001. Gore was there, remember, "the most powerful Vice President in history," the equal partner to the buffoon-in-chief – Mr. Kyoto, Mr. U.N.
On this Independence Day, as Americans are literally fighting and dying for our freedom, is it too much to ask for independence from blame-shifters and paper tigers? Is it too much to ask for a little shame?

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In 'The Embarrassed Believer,' Hugh Hewitt is reviving the Christian witness in an age of unbelief. Autographed copies are now available in WND's online store!

Hugh Hewitt is an author, television commentator and syndicated talk-show host of the Salem Radio Network's Hugh Hewitt Show, heard in over 40 markets around the country.

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