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You're arguing semantics. Gore ran on, among other things, tax cuts[1] and increased military spending[2]. He supported the Afghanistan War AND the Iraq War[3,4]. He chose Joe Lieberman as VP, who is quite possibly the most right-leaning Democrat in the Senate in the past 40 years[5], who vehemently supported the Iraq War -- so much so that he endorsed John McCain in 2008, supports the death penalty, introduced a bill to strip US persons of their citizenship without due process, supports censorship in entertainment, games, and online. Joe Lieberman is basically George Bush with a stronger grasp of the English language.
Back to Gore: He was aggressively free-trade[6], he wanted to keep medical marijuana illegal and double down on the War on Drugs[7], and he supported a "tough on crime" policy that included expanding the death penalty, mandatory minimum sentencing, and segregated schools for youth offenders[8]. He supported extraordinary rendition (kidnapping)[9] and pushed heavily for backdoors to encryption[10] while VP.

So yes, the GP is exactly right when he says we can't be sure Gore would have been better, and that even if he had done better on some issues, he may have been far worse on others, and thus worse overall.

1 http://www.4president.us/issue...
2 http://cjonline.com/stories/08...
3 https://www.wsws.org/en/articl...
4 http://www.science20.com/news_...
5 http://rightweb.irc-online.org...
6 http://www.ontheissues.org/Cel...
7 http://www.november.org/razorw...
8 http://www.ontheissues.org/Cel...
9 https://seekerblog.com/2007/09...
10 http://content.time.com/time/n...

Actually former secretary of homeland security, but the point is still valid:

http://www.google.com/search?q=michael+chertoff
http://www.cov.com/mchertoff/
http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so-excited-about-full+body-scanners
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Chertoff
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/11/19/michael-chertoff-behind-tsa-pornoscanners/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/history/biography_0116.shtm
http://www.americablog.com/2010/11/airport-full-body-scanners-are-made-by.html
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Chertoff_Michael
etc.

Fault isn't zero-sum. It's the federal government's fault for not providing paperwork, and it's Arizona's fault for relying on this paperwork on a system that is known not to support their scenario. I've been legally in the United States for months without documentation, because in many cases being an undocumented alien is not only legal it's a required part of the process.

Also, I heard there were already laws against drug cartels, criminals, rapists, kidnappers, and murderers? Focusing on people for the crime of not carrying their papers when you've got these problems is treating slight disappointment before lightning strike victims, especially if it's as bad as you say.

You know, not carrying your papers to the corner store? Completely different from raping and murdering people!

It turns out that illegal immigrants are 5x LESS likely to commit crimes than native-born people (cite: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4903), and that includes people incarcerated for illegal immigration.

But what the hell. Blame it on the Mexicans and shotgun out stupid laws that target the innocent and put them into a torture tent city. I'll take your advice and never enter Arizona. I wouldn't even vacation there. This brand of authoritarianism is not for me.

channels

What legal channels? Certainly American Indians didn't stamp visas. Oh you mean the European settlers, the same ones who massacred those already here? At least I don't see Mexicans doing that. And there are Mexicans who have the right to cross the border. The US Mexican border cuts right through the Tohono O'odham Nation. Yuman Indians who live on the border find it hard to get both Mexican passports and US visas. Some Indian tribes in Arizona oppose restrictions.

Falcon

Whatever "lobbying" was being done previously, it seems to have been completely effective. Many countries have signed, without dispute, so-called "free" trade agreements which essentially codify every US-corporate-friendly dream that could be devised by the Bushites - including DMCA-ish and software patent provisions, to speak of 2 issues in the IT area. In non-IT areas, similar capitulations are even worse. Pharmaceuticals, agriculture, all get twisted into poisonous American corporatised pretzels, to pave the way for overpriced patent drugs and monstrosities such as GM products (which should be flat-out illegal anywhere). It's as if the "sovereign" countries didn't even read the agreements, let alone take heed of the public outry that always accompanies them.

It must be so easy for them, when the signatories are Bush-puppet governments such as the Howard government in Australia (thankfully rejected at last) and Harper (which malignancy we should pray is thrown out tomorrow, or at least held safely to a minority).

Let's be honest. "Globalisation" never meant anything more or less than "America buys your stuff cheap, you buy America's stuff dear". The world does not need Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonald's, or any other substandard, exploitative American brand. The height of absurdity is Wal-Mart selling rice to Indians. What do the Wal-Marts in China sell? Crappy plastic Chinese crap back to the Chinese? The whole concept is absurd. What is Wal-Mart even doing in Canada?

The ultimate irony is that those tilting the playing field towards the USA, and who would most vehemently deny the insuperable insult to sovereignty that these agreements represent, also claim to believe in a "free market" - the Bushites, the Reaganites, the Friedmanites, the corrupt fuckwads, the ignorant lying Sarah and Todd Palins, the criminal Cons and neo-Cons whose chickens, we hope, are coming home to roost at last. If you're wondering why you're having trouble competing - maybe it's because you're not competitive! Top example - Microsoft can't compete on merit. They have to be anti-competitive; and you betcha they love them some FTA help. Pity they got caught at it.

But perhaps as the world wises the hell up, we finally see some logic in Bush's response: More lobbying. "Bring it on", in the Texan moron's famous catchphrase: Just expect more pushback!

But we'd prefer if you'd just Bugger off.

There might be some possibly there, but you'd need an enormous capital investment just to get started.

Biodiesel is growing, though maybe not as fast as some would like it. The highwayman Willie Nelson (pun intended) started Bio Willie. Biodiesel production is sharply increasing. An unfortunate side effect is that forests are being cleared for monoculture crops like palm tree plantations for the oil. What I'd like to see is an analysis to see if the cure is worse than the problem.

Falcon

"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."

There actually a wing i among fundamentalist Republicans who feel that not only are we headed for the apocalypse but it is their job to hurry it along.

E.g. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_43_38/ai_93084876

also

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2003/0312apocalypse.php

And since they kowtow to these groups for their own political ends Bush/Cheney in fact *are* evil.

Though to be honest, these days that article presented as an official announcement probably would terrify the populace. Good luck reassuring people who are terrified of imaginary threats.

Kind of like the fearmongering of Team B back in the 70's, eh?

This doesn't count as a statistical study, but discusses how accurate
the count would have to have been in Florida to have a determinate result in
Bush v. Gore:

http://web.jhu.edu/president/articles/2000/wpnov00.html

Here is a claim by Washington State electoral officials that studies had shown
their elections to be 99.99 % accurate. Even if true, that represents
an error of 10,000 votes in a 100million voter federal election.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002185379_accuracy20m.html

http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/osos_news.aspx?i=U4SQ5nub4drPOpM60107aQ%3D%3D

Note that the claimed accuracy is not enough to have determined the
Florida presidential vote in 2000.

Here's a typical Mexican election:

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3344

More anecdotes:

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=MISCOUNT-ELECT-12-20-04&cat=AN

Right wing think tanks don't impress me.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1452

Just remember that the majority of things you and I don't like coming out of the Beltway were voted into law with the help of Democrats. You know, people like your friend, Joe Lieberman. Remember the bankruptcy bill?

I'll just say that if the Democrats are so powerless, why does the entertainment industry think their votes are worth buying? You need to call Disney and tell them they're wasting their money when they give it to Senator Clinton.

Ever heard of the Democratic Leadership Council? Did you know that it has accepted funding from the Bradley, Olin, and Smith-Richardson Foundations. . . i.e. the same people who fund the rest of the right-wing noise machine?

How about the the Democratic Party's brave stand against torture. . . listen to them roar. [sound of crickets chirping] OK, how about Pelosi's brave defense of Bush against what Chavez said about him? At least that actually happened.

I vote Democratic these days and I'll contribute and work for the occasional progressive Democrat. But respect our elected Democrats in Washington? You've got to be kidding.

Perhaps after Lamonting a few more DLC types, the rest will suddenly act like people worthy of respect.

As for your shoe, I suggest you pull it out of your mouth before figuring out what to do with it. Perhaps it might fit up your ass?

Note on the last link, it's from a DLC affiliate site and obviously written by somebody who doesn't know who underwrites his paychecks.

As for "one of the problems with the progressive agenda is that they have no idea where the center is"... let's see. Based on polls for the American people and public statements of DLCers:

• The DLC may indeed be in the center, but of the Republican party.
• Iraq War? DLC in favor, the American people opposed.
• National Health Care? DLC opposed, American people in favor.
• Offshoring? DLC in favor, American people opposed.

After Clinton retired, the DLC demonstrated an inability to win elections, they deserve the credit for losing the House, Senate, and White House. But since most Congressional Democrats are DLCers, we're still stuck with the DLC.

The disconnect between Democratic party activists at places like DailyKos and "national Democrats" is fairly complete.

Sorry; I must admit a little knowledge of (non-USA) geography is useful here. Add a little history for flavour.

There is the slight issue of natural gas & oil resources in the Caspian Sea, bordering on Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. A pipeline through Afghanistan is the shortest route to get that oil to more civilized, democracy-loving nations.

Efforts to revive the trans-Afghanistan pipeline began soon after the U.S. incursion into that country. The pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan was first discussed in the late-1990s, with a consortium led by Unocal pushing the project.

Hamed Karzai worked as a consultant for the huge US oil group Unocal, which had supported the Taleban movement and sought to construct a pipeline to transport oil and gas from the Islamic republics of Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan. He is now president in Afghanistan.

Vice President Cheney was Chairman and Chief Executive of Dallas based Halliburton Corporation, the world's largest oil field services company with multi-billion dollar contracts with oil corporations including Chevron. Halliburton's global network of investments includes projects in politically volatile areas including the Caspian Sea region. Dick Cheney was instrumental in negotiating a Caspian Sea pipeline for Chevron. The Bush Administration declared war in Afghanistan, not necessarily to combat terrorism, but to make it possible for U.S. oil interests to construct gas and oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to Pakistani harbors on the Indian Ocean

From 1989 to 1992 National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was on the board of directors of Chevron, and was its main expert on Kazakhstan.

Even Bush himself is rumoured to have some connections to oil... (though never very succesfully)

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1984

No longer will Dick Cheney have to pay visits to Langley, Virginia and lean on CIA analysts to produce the kind of intelligence a Veep might need; not now that the President has his man, Republican loyalist Porter J. Goss, heading up the Agency, and a second term in hand. Of course, the CIA was already highly politicized in the first Bush term. Run by George Tenet (accurately dubbed "a political apparatchik" by Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis), throughout most of the last four years, it proved a servile agency despite possessing perfectly clear-eyed analysts who knew the truth about Iraq and wanted to pass it on.

But not, it seemed, servile enough. Unhappy with the intelligence pickings from the CIA, the Bush administration turned to its loveably, unreliable then-"friend," Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, for the sort of intelligence that could actually be used to terrify a nation into war -- you know, all those weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands, all those ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda -- and then Douglas Feith, the number three man in the Pentagon, created the Office of Special Plans to "search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists." It cherry-picked intelligence from Chalabi and others and passed it up the line to those eager to speak of mushroom clouds going off over American cities.

Such a complicated process, though. Now, former Republican congressman as well as ex-CIA agent and spy-recruiter Goss will bring no less loyal political aides from the House and elsewhere into the Agency's leadership and so simplify matters in a second Bush term. Already, before November 2, Goss's CIA was working hard to suppress crucial 9/11 information, as Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer reported. The CIA will now be but another, ever expanding militarized arm of an administration that will already control Congress (hence no possibility of serious oversight over the Agency), significant parts of our courts and justice system, a media machine, a political machine, a religious machine, a majority of the state governments in our federalist system, and sizeable hunks of the government bureaucracy. The President, in other words, will have his own intelligence arm and secret army at his beck and interventionist call for the next four years, and no one around to take a peek. The ultimate check on the administration was the electorate and it just failed. (Oh, let's not forget that there will at least be angry CIA agents and others still stuck in this highly politicized system, feeling betrayed, and as things begin to go truly off the tracks, leaking like mad.)

Of course, this administration has long been intent on putting much of what it does not only beyond all oversight, but utterly out of sight. After September 11, they put extraordinary effort and legal thought into creating an offshore mini-gulag, beyond the courts, beyond prying eyes, a torture-system beholden only to the President of the United States in his role as commander-in-chief. The CIA was put in charge of the most secret aspects of this system and, as the part of the government best tooled in the arts of offshore interrogation, from Abu Ghraib to a