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Gathering Moss: Gore’s Memory Loss
Guest Column | By Paul M. Weyrich | January 23, 2006
If the Bush Administration needs criticism, it needs to come from a source which will be taken seriously.
Former Vice President Albert ("Al") Gore, Jr. pops up every now and then to remind us how blessed we are that we don't have to listen to that whiny voice every day of the week. His most recent major speech, delivered on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, properly decried the days when government not only monitored King by electronic eavesdropping but even tried to induce him to commit suicide. No American can be proud of his government's actions at that time.
Gore now has taken a flying leap to the present day, decrying President Bush's eavesdropping on calls between terrorists abroad and their friends in this country. Said Gore: "At present we still have much to learn about NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently. A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. . . " I am so glad Gore now cares about what the Founding Fathers thought.
In this very long speech, the Former Vice President repeatedly charges that President Bush has broken the law because he supposedly has spied on Americans without a court order. If Bush has described the program in question correctly then we are talking about spying on Americans only if they have a connection with known terrorists abroad.
Gore, who gets the Fidel Castro award for lengthy speeches, repeatedly zinged the Bush Administration for violations of our privacy as Americans. To be honest, there are things the Bush Administration does which trouble me. But Al Gore is the last person who should be belling the cat.
If Gore really wanted to be taken seriously in what he was to say about the Bush Administration he should have spoken as follows:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to critique things the Bush Administration is doing which are troubling from the standpoint of the Constitution. But first, I have a confession to make.
"As Vice President I did some things I really regret and the Clinton-Gore Administration was engaged in practices which I now believe were reprehensible, if not illegal.
"First, the President asked me to help the National Security Agency ("NSA") develop what was known as the Clipper Project. The Clipper Project was to implant a small chip in every telephone which would enable NSA to monitor calls without a court order. So while I now criticize Bush about this, I realize what we did was wrong and for this I apologize and ask your forgiveness.
"Oh, yes. And then there was the 'Echelon Project,' a computer program developed with the British, which was initiated during the Clinton-Gore Administration. That program was designed to pick up key words. So if while joking with one of your friends, and speaking of a recently released Broadway show, you said "I sure think that show will bomb," the program would pick up the word "bomb" and immediately the two people in the conversation would be subjected to electronic eavesdropping. That was to be done immediately, by the way, without a court order. For this blatant violation of the Constitution I am terribly sorry and I ask your forgiveness.
"And then there was the CALEA Project, constructed to give law enforcement broader wiretapping authority. I've searched the files on this and for some reason I don't find any requirement that these law enforcement officials seek a court order before commencing their wiretapping. I could be wrong but, in any case, for merely having the idea I am sorry and I ask your forgiveness.
"Yes, and I know I have been critical of this Administration for what I have claimed is profiling in various arenas. This disproportionately affects Blacks, Arabs and other minorities. And that's why I am sorry that we in the Clinton-Gore Administration developed profiling for airline, Amtrak and bus-line passengers. Profiling is just plain wrong and for that I ask your forgiveness.
"Those of you who were aware of things after the terrorism at Oklahoma City may remember that the Clinton-Gore Justice Department was concerned that some groups would try to take advantage of the situation so we established a project to try to identify domestic terrorists. I looked at a copy of the website the other day. I was shocked to see that we had listed as groups which might be disruptive: "Defenders of US Constitution against the Federal Government and the UN (Super Patriots)." Now out of office I have become a defender of the Constitution against the Federal Government so I apologize and ask the forgiveness of anyone I insulted. And I'm sorry we listed among hate groups, such as the Nazis, the KKK, skinheads and the like, a group called Christian Identity. I don't know anything about such a group and I'm not sure if we were trying to say that any group which paraded its Christian identity might be a problem. In any event, I know now that such a group caused no harm so I apologize and ask your forgiveness.
"And I specifically want to apologize to Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America. I know we singled him out as a potential troublemaker when he has had nothing but a peaceful record his whole life. And so I specifically want to ask his forgiveness.
"Then I recall that Janet Reno's Justice Department established Project Megiddo in anticipation of the turn of the Century and the Millennium. I realize we targeted fundamentalist Christians and all but invited citizens to spy on them. I now realize how unfair this was and so I apologize and ask your forgiveness.
"Yes, I realize that during the Clinton-Gore Administration, anxious as we were to find someone guilty of crimes in which we had a particular interest, we made mistakes. Poor Richard Jewell comes to mind. We accused him of being the Olympic Park bomber. Turned out he wasn't. I realize we have done far too little to help him get his life back. For this mistake and others I apologize and ask your forgiveness.
"And while we didn't exactly do these ourselves, we encouraged the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to initiate the "Know Your Customer" program. So banks would be required to report any unusual deposit made as potential drug money. So if your uncle died and left you $50,000 but your monthly deposits usually were $8,000 you automatically would become a drug-money suspect. I now realize out of government how blatantly unfair such a program was and I apologize and ask your forgiveness."
If Al Gore had delivered that kind of speech and then criticized the Bush Administration for violating the Constitution maybe serious people would have listened. As it stands, however, the former Vice President has zero credibility on the matter of what is Constitutional and what is not. If the Bush Administration needs criticism, it needs to come from a source which will be taken seriously.
Paul Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
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