Moreover, the rest of the world certainly isn't jumping in to help out very much the way we expected, so US taxpayers are now having to spend a billion dollars a week.
In other words, when you put it all together, it was just one mistaken impression after another. Lots of them.
Meanwhile Al Gore has gotten the correct impression. Lots of them.
But backseat quarter-backing the Bush Adminstration alone whether it be on his ineffectual response to 9/11 warnings or his failure to support and expand the Kyoto Treaties alone isn't a qualification for the Presidency.
Rather, there are two primary reasons why Al Gore is essentially needed as the next President lay in what he has already shown he is capable of accomplishing when he previously sat at heartbeat away from that position for 8 years.
Reason Number One: REGO
During that time President Bill Clinton placed Gore in charge of his Reinventing Government Program which during course of it's life saved $137 billion and reduced the federal workforce by 300,000 (Averaging 10% across all agencies, except the DOJ which increased personnel) and at the same time improving efficiency and responsiveness.
One of the key models that was used, amazingly, was FEMA.
During the 1990s, FEMA was routinely praised as one of the best-functioning federal agencies. Its response to the Midwestern floods of 1993, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and 1995's Oklahoma City terrorist attack are considered models of emergency response.
We now know that under Bush FEMA has been utterly destroyed, as have nearly each and every other major government function. Rather than responding to the needs of the people, they make excuses as they did with Governor Sibelius.
Rather than reducing the size and excessive influence of Government - Bush has overseen the most massive Federal Agency ever - The Department of Homeland Security.
And yet our ports still aren't properly protected or inspected.
Under Clinton and the direction of Al Gore, the government worked for the benefit of the people, not just for corporations or to implement a partisan agenda as we've seen with the Bush DOJ Firings, the "Faith Based Initiatives" and refusal to implement EPA regulations.
The mess that Bush has made of the Government is going to require someone with a vast level of experience to correct and no one in the current set of Democratic or Republicans Presidential hopefuls has this experience except for Al Gore.
Reason Two: Terrorism
The true test of a leader isn't the photo-ops you take after things have already blown-up and gone hell, it's what you do to prevent that sitaution from occuring in the first place.
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