Al Be Damned

Liberals, when not arrogant about their righteousness, can be and usually are true suckers & saps. Clinton worship is the main sign, a chance for libs to shill for the death penalty, either thru lethal injection or a federal assault on private citizens, and to lecture the poor on their bad social habits, a Clintonite fave since the early days of welfare "reform." And while we wait for the you-know-they're-coming justifications for President Hillary, we have the spectacle of online libs fainting and fawning at Al Gore's feet.

"Not the Al Gore, the guy who headed the most rightwing Dem ticket of modern times?"

Yep. Him.

Since throwing in the towel to the Bush gang in 2000, Gore has undergone a semi-political makeover, making populist noises and bellowing about Bush's corruption, incompetence and deceit -- easy enough to do since there's so much to denounce. But in a Martin Luther King Day address in DC, Gore attacked Bush's police state spying apparatus and pleaded for Congressional Dems and Repubs to get back in the business of serious legislative oversight. All well and good. Problem is, Gore failed to mention his and Bill Clinton's rather major role in setting the repressive stage for Bush.

Clinton/Gore, in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, came forth a year later with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which, under the guise of fighting terrorists, was a frontal assault on the Fourth Amendment and further expanded federal police power. The Clinton/Gore admin also was in favor of roving wiretaps, which they felt the FBI should conduct without a court order. But even before Oklahoma City, Clinton/Gore sought more state control over the populace via the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, passed in 1994, which aided police and federal spying on citizens by tapping digital phone networks. Not only did the phone companies have to allow any and all surveillance of their networks, they also were required to make phone call records available to the state. On top of all this, anyone being spied upon was not to know that they were under federal or police suspicion for whatever reason.

Then there's the expansion of prison building and the use of the federal death penalty (while curtailing death row prisoners’ habeas corpus appeals), as well as tightening the screws on the poor that Clinton/Gore actively supported and pushed into action. But let's not pile on too much here, for whenever I bring any of this up to Clinton/Gore libs, they get very testy, and if sufficiently prodded, they take pride in their heroes' "law and order" stance. In other words, many libs have no real problem with domestic spying and limitless state power. They just don't like it when the Repubs are at the wheel.

Maybe Al Gore has truly changed. Maybe he's become some kind of civil libertarian. Appearing on the same stage with Bob Barr, whose record on this front is much much better than Gore's, suggests that he might take seriously what he says. But before we can believe anything this career politician and friend to the powerful proclaims, acknowledgment of his role in subverting the Constitution should be demanded. Only then can this purported "conscience of the Democratic Party" be considered even moderately clean.