When Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore selected Connecticut
Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his running mate, the establishment press,
Washington “elite,” and pundits-o-plenty the nation over opined, “Now
Gore has his credibility back.”
Lieberman, you see, was merely eye candy — a choice designed to make
Americans forget about the previous eight years of the current
administration, when Gore served as co-conspirator to President Clinton
during what has become the most corrupt regime in U.S. history.
For a while it worked. Gore’s numbers bounced upward; he closed huge
polling gaps with rival GOP nominee George W. Bush; he even began to
lead in some polls.
Yes, Lieberman was a smart choice for Gore — at the time.
But that “time” has since passed in a business — politics — where a
candidate seems only as good as his last five-second sound bite.
Gore, short-term thinker that he is, obviously didn’t plan on his
past catching up with him again before Nov. 7. But as last week’s
news demonstrated, the past has caught up with him again and in
doing so has destroyed any modicum of credibility he might have —
might have, mind you — built up in the electorate after choosing
Lieberman.
But the inherent unseemliness of this regime again reared its ugly
head after revelations about the vice president’s “no controlling legal
authority” fund-raising practices surfaced in a pair of news stories.
Those reports detailed Gore’s alleged shakedown of a group of Texas law
firms and lawyers as payback for an expected Clinton veto of tort reform
legislation. Clinton did veto the bill May 2, 1996.
Gore says he didn’t do anything — as he has always said, “I didn’t
do it” — but once again, the evidence is too compelling and too, well,
obvious to garner him much in the way of believability.
By now everyone with more than a single brain cell knows how
important it was to the Clinton-Gore team to win the White House at any
cost. In fact, Clinton has spent his regime raising tens of millions of
dollars in perpetual campaign mode; to imagine that his No. 2 — Gore —
had no role in any of it is ludicrous.
Having said that, there is no doubt in my mind that while Gore may be
less corrupt than his boss, he is at least tainted by the
Clinton administration and by his tacit support of all that it has done
by agreeing to remain Clinton’s right [or left] hand man for eight
years. That alone makes him unworthy to succeed the boss in November.
Because lawmakers have turned a blind eye to the generalized
corruption that must be engaged in order to even raise enough money to
run for public office these days, Gore, Clinton, and a host of
Republicans have all had to pander, lie, cheat, and steal in order to
raise the capital needed to make a decent contest. That in and of itself
is shameful and indicative of the ineffectiveness of modern American
political machinations.
Though Buchanan had to earn his money the hard way — by actually
qualifying for it — the two major parties, which have traded
charges of campaign finance improprieties for years, wallow in the green
stuff because it is virtually thrown at them from every direction 24-7.
With such temptation, someone is bound to cross the line.
So it should come as no surprise that Gore has had to — shall we say
— bend a few rules to raise enough dough to keep his West Wing
office. Ditto for his bid to obtain the Oval Office.
But to tie such donations to actual legislation, as has been alleged
by reports appearing last week in the Washington Times and the New York
Times, is a bit much and, as “some have suggested,” probably illegal —
“no controlling legal authority” arguments aside. And despite who he is
or who he was, Joe Lieberman can’t get the veep out of this one.
Those newspaper accounts brought to light the worst kind of
public-private corruption in politics — worse even than the vote-buying
that occurs during campaigns.
For if proven true, these lawyers — and Clinton-Gore — are guilty
of buying and selling laws, a concept more endemic to a
third-rate, third-world banana republic dictatorship.
That sort of thing cannot be allowed to continue in the most powerful
country on earth. The implications to world peace, economic growth and
stability are simply too great, even if most liberal stalwarts don’t get
it or don’t see what all the “fuss” is about.
For these reasons, Gore is neither deserving of nor trustworthy
enough to obtain the highest elected office in the world.
Granted, he says he didn’t do it. But how many more close associates
of Clinton and Gore have to be indicted and sent to jail for illegal
fund-raising before Americans finally realize those operatives were
working for somebody.
