Gore Once Again Denies That He Is Running In 2008

On C-Span Radio the other night, I heard Al Gore address a gathering at a Democratic political fundraiser in Florida. It was a recording of an address he gave last week. Here is an article discussing this event. Although I enjoy his more formal speeches such as the ones sponsored by MoveOn.org, this address was more or less an off-the-cuff speech with no teleprompter and probably limited notes, and it was very effective.

Near the end of his address, Gore referred to when General Washington, while at Valley Forge, refused to allow his men to torture two captured British soldiers, even though the other side had mistreated captured Americans. Washington said something to the effect that he wasn't going to allow the torture because we as Americans are going to do things differently than everyone else and hold ourselves to a higher standard. Gore then discussed the torture policy of the current administration and said:

"In every war there have been excesses ... that have come out of the extremes of combat and war. * * * But never previously has it been official U.S. policy to depart from that respect that we should not torture."

Gore went on to remark that there is something terribly wrong with America right now and everyone knows this, but his overall speech was very positive and it reminded me how things could have been in this country had the Supreme Court simply let States' Rights prevail and stayed the hell away from the 2000 election.

That's why I hope Al Gore runs for president. Of all the potential Democratic candidates, he was consistently against the Iraq War from the start. Sure, Russ Feingold was also consistently against the war and I wouldn't mind seeing him get the nomination, but what Gore really has on his side is that he actually won the 2000 election and can honestly go down a list of Bush's many failures as president and describe to the nation how he would have done things differently.
So that's why I get a little bummed out when I read stuff like this:

Al Gore said "he's not planning to run for president in 2008 but hasn't ruled out a future in politics," the AP reports.

Said Gore: "I'm not planning to be a candidate again. I haven't reached a stage in my life where I'm willing to say I will never consider something like this. But I'm not saying that to be coy; I'm just saying that to be honest that I haven't reached that point."

When I read stuff like this, it makes me sad to think that someone like Hillary Clinton could get the nomination. Since folks like Clinton and Kerry supported the Iraq War, any GOP opponent they might have to run against would be able to effectively argue that they flip-flopped on Iraq. The response, of course, would be, "Well, sure I supported the war, but had I been commander-in-chief, I would have at least run the war in a competent manner."

I just don't think the Democrats will be able to get much traction with such an argument. I like what Atrios has to say about all this:

The incompetence dodge is just that. But it's precisely where the foreign policy line is being drawn in the Democratic party, between those who thought all along the war was a disaster and those who imagine that if they had been in charge things could've worked out better.

I'm with those (obviously) who think it's fundamentally important not just to repudiate the execution of policy by the Bush administration, but the policies themselves and their justifications. "Like Bush only better" will not win a presidential election.

Gore/Feingold 2008.