From Al Smokestack Gore's book:
"Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable....Right. Too easy and too partisan, but you just did it, Al. And as for free speech, I'll remind you:
....It is too easy—and too partisan—to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us?
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
6 comments:
You surely know that you cherry picked that quote. The speach you quote from was all about the dangers of the way Bush was pursuing the course towards war and the dangers of his doctrine of preemption (as well as his timing of the debate just before an election to put more presure on Congress to go his way). Gore points out that even with the danger posed by Sadam, even though we had-in Gore's view-the legal authority to attack, the costs in terms of our international standing, the potential for chaos in Iraq, the weakening of the war on terror, and the damage done to our democracy would be too great.
It would be easy to cherry pick quotations from the same speach to cast Gore in the role of seer, but they would be just as false as the quotes you use. It was a speach that was partly right, partly wrong. You should at least post a link to the full speach so that people can read it themselves. One thing that is clear from reading the speach is that he was even then calling for more reasoned and open debate. There is nothing in it that contridicts his call for more reason now.
You're so right. I apologize for not giving the full speech in context. Here are the relevent parts:
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Now, if my plane is gassed up, I've got another speech in New York. Thank you all for coming."
Hey anon - did he say those things or not? I swear, the left's lack of a moral anchor has led to a total lack of perspective. You're always looking for "context" or "relativism" or you're brokering sins in an effort to make your side look better. "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." But that lacks "nuance" right? How can you guys claim to be "reality based" when your reality is constantly shifting to meet the needs of your own political advancement?
OK, the context can be found here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
And the point, as is the case with all the quotes on that page, is that nobody lied. People may have been mistaken but if the President lied, then everyone on that page did too.
"more reasoned and open debate?"
Gordo claims that virtually all scientists agree on anthropomorphic climate change.
He refuses to dabate with scientists eminently more qualified than he or even tolerate the expression of another opinion.
Hey anon - nothing to say to those who disagree with you? Don't have the cojones to face a debate? Hmmmm... No wonder algore is your hero.
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