CLINTON - GOP would have gored Gore

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ABC

What If? Clinton Says GOP Would Have Gored Gore

By Josh Gerstein

W A S H I N G T O N , Dec. 12 — Add Bill Clinton's name to the list of prominent Democrats who think the nation's capital would be a partisan mess if Al Gore had become president. Comedian Al Franken says Clinton told him that if Gore were president, Republicans in Congress would be criticizing Gore's prosecution of the war, holding hearings about the administration's failures and perhaps even seeking Gore's impeachment.

"He said there would be congressional hearings about how they let their guard down," Franken said in an interview Tuesday. "He was saying how the bipartisanship we're seeing now is really a one-way street."

The comedian, who is friendly with both Gore and Clinton, said he couldn't remember Clinton's exact words but that the former president did mention the possibility that Gore might have been impeached. "I think he said they'd probably be impeaching him right now," Franken recalled.

Franken told ABCNEWS his chat with Clinton "may have been a private conversation." However, the comedian discussed Clinton's comments at a Harvard seminar on Nov. 27 and a brief account of the exchange appeared in a university newsletter two days later.

Clinton spokeswoman Julia Payne said the former president has not discussed a hypothetical Gore presidency in his on-the-record remarks but has told people he agrees with a Wall Street Journal column by Al Hunt that was published Nov. 29.

Hunt wrote that Gore's war Cabinet would have been as good as Bush's, but that Gore would have faced a barrage of criticism from conservatives. "The political right wouldn't have given him the leeway and support that President Bush has received," said Hunt.

Franken, a liberal who wrote a book skewering Rush Limbaugh, offered this assessment to the Harvard audience: "We're kind of lucky that the Supreme Court stole the election."

That was a tongue-in-cheek remark, Franken said Tuesday. But he agrees there would be more debate over war tactics if Gore were in the White House. "This would be a lot trickier if Gore had won," Franken said. "There wouldn't be the unity."

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

Answers

I hate to sound negative, but after reading that I wonder if unity in the U.S. will ever be possible. Sometimes I think that we're going to end up destroying ourselves with all this hatred.

Guess it's time for me to get a Prozac prescription, eh?

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2001


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