Something else to stir the pot. I received this from the same BB&Ber

AL GORE, WIMP from the NY Post of September 25, 2002


How would America have reacted to Sept. 11 had Al Gore been president?

Or, more to the point, how would Al Gore have reacted to Sept. 11?

Judging by his speech the other day to the Commonwealth Club of California, the answer is: Weakly.

Tentatively.

Maybe not at all.

Gore, his sights firmly set on the 2004 presidential race, blistered President Bush effort to oust Saddam Hussein.

He said it will hurt the war on terror.

This from Bill Clinton's veep.

That is, this from a member of an administration that sat fecklessly by while Americans died at the hands of terrorists in Africa, in the Middle East - and, in 1993, at the World Trade Center itself.

Like Clinton himself, Al Gore doesn't lack chutzpah. Though fully 60 percent of the American people say they support Bush's call for regime change in Iraq, Gore charged that the president is acting for strictly partisan reasons.

"To please the portion of [his] base that occupies the far right," as Gore put it.

He accused Bush of having "squandered" the "enormous reservoir of good will and sympathy and shared resolve all over the world" in the wake of 9/11.

Sympathy?

Talk about your pitiful, helpless (bearded?) giants.

Nearly 3,000 dead on 9/11 - and Al Gore's heart bleeds all over his shoes.

This is the fellow who, in 1991, courageously defied most of his own party to support the Gulf War.

Certainly the threat hasn't changed - Al Gore has changed.

And, clearly, not for the better.

Gore knows that the destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon was not an isolated event, but part of a terrorist movement with many sponsors - including Saddam Hussein.

Clinton's veep would be well-advised to read carefully the compelling speech delivered yesterday by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

For, in unveiling a 50-page dossier compiled by his Joint Intelligence Committee, Blair effectively laid out before the entire world unimpeachable evidence, in terrifying detail, of how Saddam threatens the entire world.

And why military action against him cannot wait.

Saddam's "Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program is active, detailed and growing," Blair told Parliament.

"The policy of containment is not working. The WMD program is not shut down. It is up and running."

The British report "concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons" that he "continues to produce" and that "could be activated within 45 minutes."

Forty-five minutes!

Among those weapons are anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin, all of which "eventually result in excruciatingly painful death."

And which Saddam already has used.

Meanwhile, his nuclear weapons campaign is continuing - and is accompanied by the stepped-up development of long-range ballistic missiles.

To those, like Al Gore, who concede that Saddam is evil but caution against immediate action, Blair had this to say:

"If the international community, having made the call for disarmament now, at this point of decision shrugs its shoulders and walks away, he will draw the conclusion [that] dictators with a weakening will always draw: That the international community will talk, but not act; will use diplomacy, but not force."

Said Blair yesterday: "Diplomacy not backed by force has never worked with dictators - and never will work."

How bizarre that a British prime minister makes a better case for defending vital Western interests than the fellow who came within a couple of hanging chads from becoming the president of the United States of America.

What luck.

For America.

For the world.