"Beyond Incompetence"

Excerpts from Al Gore's speech yesterday:

"...Most of the problems President Bush has caused for this country stemmed not from his belief in God but his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interest of the wealthy, and of large corporations over and above the interests of the American people. It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency...."

"...The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals, and then cloaks them with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world. And in the process he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities...."

"...It has also become common for President Bush to rely on special interests for his basic information about the policies important to them. And he trusts what they tell him over any contrary view that might emerge from public debate. He has in effect outsourced the truth...."

"...Most disturbing of all: his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately describe the world have now tempted him to the hubristic and genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills...."

"...This is not negligence. When the administration is told specifically and repeatedly that there is no linkage [between Saddam and Al Quaeda], and simultaneously makes bold assertions in a confident manner to the American people that leave the impression with 70 percent of the country that Saddam Hussein was primarily responsible for the attack, this is deception. This is deception...."

"...It is clear that President Bush has absolute faith in a rigid right-wing ideology and does not feel the same desire that many of us would in gathering facts relevant to the question at hand. He ignores the warning of his experts, he forbids any dissent, never tests his assumptions against the best available evidence. In fact, he is arrogantly out of touch with reality. He refuses to ever admit mistakes, which means that so long as he is our president we are doomed to repeat his mistakes! It is beyond incompetence! It is recklessness that risks the safety and security of the American people...."

"...there are many other cases where subsequently available information shows that the president did actually have analyses he was given at the time from reputable sources directly contrary to what he was telling the American people. And in virtually every case, the president, it is now evident, rejected the information that later turned out to be accurate, and instead chose to rely on and to forcefully present to the American people information that subsequently turned out to be false. And in every case, a flawed analysis was provided to him from sources that often had a direct interest, financial or otherwise, in the radically new policy that the president adopted. And in those cases where that policy has been implemented, the consequences have been to the detriment of the American people, often catastrophically so...."

"...The Bush-Cheney administration is a rarity in American history, it is simultaneously dishonest and incompetent...."

"...Massive incompetence, endemic corruption, official justification for torture, wholesale abuse of civil liberties, arrogance masquerading as principle -- these are new, unfamiliar and unpleasant realities for the United States of America. We hardly recognize our country when we look in the mirror of what Jefferson called the 'opinion of humankind.' How could we have come to this point?..."

"...the last feature of Bush's ideology involves ducking accountability for his mistakes. He has neutralized accountability by the Congress by intimidating the Republican leadership and transforming the Republican majority into a true rubber stamp, unlike any that has ever existed in American history. He has appointed right-wing judges who have helped to insulate him from accountability in the courts. And if he wins again, he will likely get to appoint up to four Supreme Court justices. He has ducked accountability from the press with his obsessive secrecy and refusal to conduct the public's business openly. So there is now only one center of power left in our Constitution and in our country capable of at long last holding George W. Bush accountable, and it is you, the voters."