9/11 is not a day for wonkery

Your TerrorWonk has been moribund lately. I'm not bereft of ideas or things to say, but rather of time to say them. If you follow me on Twitter you'll see I'm pretty busy.

But I'm the TerrorWonk, if I can't say something on 9/11 maybe I'm in the wrong business.

Wonkery is about analysis and the go-to tool in our time is cost-benefit analysis (CBA - which if done right is also CYA.)  Is this thing we are going to do or have done a good idea - is it working, do we like what we are getting out of it?  It isn't always just about numbers.  Moral considerations are also costs, heavy reliance on drones may have a non-tangible cost to America's reputation. Disguising special forces as a NGO workers for a rescue operation may have a cost in endangering the NGO workers in the future.

I've done these analyses on 9/11s past. But not today.

As a nation we've done some smart things and some stupid things since 9/11.  But ON 9/11 nearly three thousand people died for no good reason.  Their deaths were due to eschatological fantasies of a band of fanatics.  We saw some stunning examples of heroism that day twelve years ago and in that our souls can find some comfort.

The Eye of Sauron now turns to Chechnya, er Syria, I mean Egypt, oh wait Syria again...

As I first conceptualized this post I could hear Ian McKellan sonorously intoning these words.  I really enjoyed the geopolitical lessons of LOTR (if only Denethor had systematically maintained Gondor’s strategic alliances he would have been better able to deter Mordor I whispered to my wife as we watched the movie – she told me to shut up.)

I’d been thinking about the Eye of Sauron as a metaphor for how top-level decision-making works (kind of an obsession of mine!) for some time when Slate ran an article comparing Sauron’s Eye to the surveillancestate.  It’s a good article, but does not quite capture the essence of the Eye (although it does a good job comparing Mordor to a police state – another book that does that is Watership Down).  Sauron’s Eye can only look upon a place at a time, whereas the NSA can effectively read pretty much everything all the time.  However, the ability of policy-makers to act on this information is limited by what they choose to focus on – that’s the essence of the Eye.

When Sauron looks upon something, he (it?) can unleash huge armies, death from the skies, and his creepy voice that can tempt the weak and twist the strong.  Not unlike the US which can bomb anywhere in the world at will, deploy soldiers and Special Forces, and finally just send compelling messages.  (Most people tend to find a direct contact from the President pretty compelling.)  This is not to say the US is Mordor (I believe we are on the whole a force for the good but one can certainly see an alternate perspective.)

LOTR ends with the good guys (Men of the West!) launching a huge attack on Mordor, not because they can win but because it will distract Sauron while the Hobbits schlep the ring to Mt. Doom to destroy it.  (Sorry if I gave anything away – it’s still a good read or view.)  The plan works, because Sauron’s armies are drawn away to counter the attacking army while the Eye itself has to focus on the battle.

I’ve been thinking about this since April when, after the Boston bombing, suddenly everyone was interested in Chechnya again.  But, Chechnya is a complicated far-away place with a surplus of clan warfare and crime, which has also been brutalized by the Russians.  How much effort does the President want to expend on this kind of thing?  What’s more, anything the US would want to do in Chechnya would involve Russia.  So first the President has to engage Russia (and probably give them stuff) to get better access to Chechnya and then the pot of gold is getting sucked into the perennial Hatfields & McCoys of the Caucuses.  If we had dozens of attackers coming to the US from Chechnya killing hundreds a year maybe we’d have to do exactly that.  But we don’t.  I’m sure on an administrative level the appropriate national security agencies put additional modest resources on the Chechnya beat, but that’s about it especially since Syria flared up.

Syria is a real war and getting involved in a way that would clearly tilt that scales would be a massive commitment.  In the debate about going into Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly warned, “This is going to suck the oxygen out of everything else we are trying to do.”

One thing the Iraq war did do was devour the time and energy of the decision-makers.  I heard that at the height of the violence there was a Deputies Committee meeting everyday about Iraq.  That is an enormous amount of work.  The Deputies are the number 2s (busy people!) at the key departments (State, Defense, Justice National Security Council and usually several others.)  They try to resolve issues and if they can’t tee them up for the Principals – the big bosses.  The Deputies Committee really is the working group for the government.  So if they were spending all of their time on Iraq it meant other stuff isn’t getting to the Deputies – let alone to the President.

We just learned that military options in Syria would cost at least a billion dollars a month.  If there were a clear benefit to the expenditure it would be a bargain.  But we aren't sure where a war in Syria would lead.  But it would become the dominant item on the President's desk for the foreseeable future at the expense of innumerable other priorities.

Now Egypt is in the headlines.  The ideal policy for Egypt is obvious – use financial aid and the need for international legitimacy to press the Egyptian junta to develop and follow-through on a Constitutional process while liberalizing the economy.  By the way, we sort of tried that already with the Gore-Mubarak Commission in the 1990s – check out my paper on a similar effort with Russia.  Both efforts had mixed results.  First, getting other countries to do what you want is really hard (that should be IR 101).  And to have a chance of getting other countries to do what you want the President needs to sit on them.  So my proposed Egypt policy would require the President to be desk officer for Egypt and Egypt just isn’t that important.

Why can’t the President set a policy and have Ambassadors and what have you carry it out?  Without clear and direct Presidential support, the country in question will ignore or slow-walk the President’s envoys.  Serious threats require follow-through to be credible and for that the President will have to put in real effort to make them happen – Ambassadors usually don’t have a sufficient arsenal.

Another way to view it is like parenthood (another hobby of mine.)  You want your kid to NOT do X and TO do Y.  The kid really doesn’t want to do Y and has a lot more energy to devote to the issue than you do.  You have a job, maybe other kids, a house to run etc.  Your kid has nothing to think about but this particular problem.  So the kid may not do X, but will successfully distract you enough to avoid doing Y.  If you are willing to focus your day on getting the kid to do Y – it can probably happen but then you won’t get to clean the kitchen, watch your shows, or play Sudoku on your phone.  You managed to get the kid to not do X, but do you really want to put in the enormous extra effort for Y to happen?

It would be kind of like that with Egypt.  They'd help on security in the Sinai but resist any serious economic liberalization or establishing a real Constitution.  We'd hold back aid, but then they'd warn that without aid the couldn't control the country - you can see how this goes.

That being said, sometimes the US has had successful foreign policies that have nudged along unstable states without completely overwhelming the President.  I often point to Plan Columbia as a case where the US spent some money and provided expertise and the situation in Columbia improved dramatically.  There have been others.  I am deeply curious about how to build the structure that will allow successful US policies without overwhelming the President.  It seems like a useful capability for the United States to develop.  Perhaps a topic for some enterprising PhD student...

Until the Eye of Sauron learns to delegate and establish some networked institutions among the orcs, it will be forced to flit from crisis to crisis.

Pursuit of Happiness

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Jefferson was unquestionably a great politician.  He may not have been a political philosopher of the first order - in politics there is a vast gulf between practice and theory.  (Of course being a first-rate politician, natural scientist and writer, and a second-rate philosopher, architect, and inventor still puts one solidly in the poly-maths club.)

The basic ideas of the Declaration of Independence were cribbed from Locke, who wrote:

Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world  hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of the law in others...

A political philosopher must be precise and define terms carefully.  A politician has the freedom to paint with a broad-brush and inspire the polity.  Where Locke is precise, Jefferson is elegant.  But I am most struck by the shift from estate to happiness.  Perhaps is was merely an inspirational turn of phrase, but its impact is profound.

Jefferson himself was a man of property, but with little interest in it - except as a means to support his research and writing.  It makes me think of Aristotle who, in The Nicomachean Ethics an exploration of character, goodness, and happiness writes:

Every art and every investigation, and similarly every action and pursuit is considered to aim at some good....  If, then, our activities have some end which we want for its own sake, and for the sake of which we want all the other ends - if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for this will involve an infinite progression, so that our aim will be pointless and ineffectual) - it is clear that this must be the Good, that is the supreme good.

Aristotle dismisses money as this ultimate end:

As for the life of the business man, it does not give him much freedom of action.  Besides, wealth is obviously not the good that we are seeking, because it serves only as a means; i.e. for getting something else.

Jefferson evolves Locke's framework and inserts it into our political DNA.  We do not merely have a government to protect our property. Property, particularly Locke's "estate" is the necessary means.  But Jefferson wants to inspire us to seek our end, to pursue happiness.

There are no promises that we can be happy, but rather that this is the point of the whole exercise.  To quote another great American, Yaakov Smirnov, "What a country!"

It is fair to say that the United States - like every nation - is founded upon piles of bones.  We have a government that - at time - has systematically prevented individuals from the pursuit of happiness in a profound way.  But on July 4 we also recall the words of Lincoln - a match for Jefferson as a writer and politician - and his tremendous efforts to set right that great injustice.

But that will have to be a post for another time.  I have some happiness to pursue.

Comey v. Cheney: In a Different Light

James Comey, the former Deputy Attorney General who famously stood up to the administration's warrantless wire-tapping policies is back in the news because he is about to be appointed Director of the FBI.  His back-story is also relevant as US domestic intelligence collection policies are in the news.

A quick re-cap, when Jack Goldsmith took over the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ he tossed out the previous opinion that authorized the administration's domestic intelligence collection.  He persuaded Comey that the opinion authored by his predecessor and used as legal support for the adminstration's domestic intelligence collection policies was not legally sound.  One aspect of the program was that it had to be re-authorized by the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Director of Central Intelligence every 45 days.  Comey, acting in Ashcroft's stead during the Attorney General's hospitalization, refused to re-authorize the program.  This led to the infamous hospital scene in which White House chief of staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alfredo Gonzales went to Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to sign and had a confrontation with Comey.  Comey took the issue to the President, warning him that appointees at the Department of Justice would resign en masse if the program were continued.  The President, who reportedly did not know the extent of DOJ's dissatisfaction with the situation, altered the program.

This story is generally taken as yet another case of Cheney's nefarious influence.  Cheney's support of the intelligence gathering policy is not in dispute and apparently there was little love lost between Cheney and Comey.  But was Cheney really in the driver's seat?  I think there is another way to view the incident - not as a matter the facts, but rather the interpretation.

First, the episode occurred in 2004.  Bush's priority would have been on his re-election campaign.  He told his vice president to keep things off of his personal agenda if it all possible.

Second, the program had been re-authorized 20 times without incident.  From Cheney's perspective the question had to be, in effect, "What now?"

Bush called the ailing Ashcroft at his hospital to press him to sign and he agreed to do so.  When Bush's people arrived though Comey was there digging his heels in.  It could be argued that Cheney might have served the President better by alerting him to these kinds of difficulties so that the administration could address the problems before they became a crisis.  But by most accounts, Bush was not passively drawn into the extensive surveillance programs - he thought they were a good idea and was a proponent of them.  So his staff was acting as his bludgeon - pushing through his preferences.

So instead of Darth Cheney, architect of a surveillance program dimly understood by his callow President - we see VP Cheney doing what VPs have done since they were given a role: help the President do whatever it is the President wants to do.

VPs do sometimes provide the "wait a minute" moments - telling Presidents a difficult truth that no one else can articulate.  Maybe it would have been wise for Cheney to play that role (as Ford's chief of staff he sought to make sure Ford heard a range of views on key issues and ensure there was an orderly policy process.)  And maybe he did that on some issues.  But the President specifically tasked Cheney with ensuring there were no more attacks against the US, and Cheney took that mission to heart.

This is an alternate take, but it is tough to know what the real truth was.  Still as I keep thinking along these lines, I remember an old SNL skit:

Boston Marathon Bombings: The System is Working

I was in Boston this weekend for family stuff.  I left Sunday morning, the lobby of my hotel was full of people getting ready for the marathon.  I came in from my morning run. (Several times I week I run about three miles and eat cookies.)  The real runners looked me over, friendly, but appraising.  I waved and told them I'm just a casual runner, "I couldn't run a marathon - I get tired driving 26.2 miles."

I flew to LA on a United Airlines flight just before 9/11.  My family and I could easily have been on one of the flights - but we scheduled our trip around the Jewish New Year.  So being Jewish might have saved my life...

The sniper was in my neighborhood and I was on Capitol Hill on anthrax day.

Maybe I am the root cause of terrorism?

But seriously folks, what is to be made of the bombing in Boston?

First, little is really known.  We have two Chechen brothers, one alive and one dead who apparently had lived in the United States for about a decade.  Their specific motivations and path to violence are not known although there are certainly suggestions of links to radical Islam.  The extent of their contacts abroad is unknown at this point.

This is the nightmare scenario that counter-terror experts have been worried about for some time - the lone wolves and self-starter terrorists that simply cannot be detected before they carry-out their mayhem.  As always, my instinct is to ask - particularly considering the plethora of targets and relative ease of carry out operations: why haven't we seen more of these kinds of attack?

William Saletan at Slate points out that there have been about 20 bombing attempts since 9/11 but for various reasons none of them worked out.  Some of this was luck, other was good law enforcement.  Saletan may underplay that bomb-making is not for amateurs.  In Iraq and Afghanistan where there are communities of bomb-makers in touch with one another and sharing information and experimenting they get pretty good at it.  But individuals, without special training, face a steep learning curve.  Still, sooner or later someone was bound to get it right.

We have also faced many shooting attacks by terrorists, but here again, considering the ease of such attacks it is surprising that there are not a great deal more of them.  The exemplary Daveed Gartenstein-Ross points out that quite simply that radical causes simply are not attracting that much support, thus limiting how many threats we face.

So what do we do?

Policy options are limited.

Chechen Connection
We don't know if there is a live connection between the brothers and Chechnya, but even if there is we want to think carefully about getting involved in Chechnya.  A lot of people are going to claim to be experts on Chechnya in the near future.  Some of them might now something.  I am not one of them, but I know it is a complicated place with an unfamiliar culture and a complex local power dynamics.  It is also a world center for smuggling.  Maybe the US should have been helping to mitigate Russia's heavy-handed tactics there over a decade ago - but that is water under the bridge now.  That also raises another point, which anything big we want to do vis-a-vis Chechnya involves Russia.  What are we prepared to give them and what issue are we prepared to drop from the agenda if we add Chechen issues?

Intelligence Options
It appears one of the perpetrators was into Islamist videos.  Could the radicalization process have been detected beforehand?  Maybe, but that would involve a pretty deep intelligence apparatus monitoring a great deal of activity, followed up by investigations.  Such work yields lots of false positives which are very expensive (financially and also socially - people's lives can be ruined.)  DO we want that kind of monitoring - lots of people watch disturbing videos online, do we want a government monitoring this?

There may be some inside baseball moves.  Intelligence assets will be re-deployed, hopefully some targets will be hardened, and lessons will be learned.  But I for one am leery of a major national initiative because that would involve the President.  The things that reach the President's desk should be problems that only POTUS can address.  Right now the appropriate agencies are responding appropriately.  We should take some pride and comfort in that - plenty of countries don't have that luxury.

Tipping Points
As awful as the Boston Marathon Bombing was, and it was a tragedy, a handful of serious terror attacks on US soil over the past decade may be an indication that things are going pretty well.  Annually the US loses 15000 people to homicide, 30000 to auto accidents, and another 30000 to suicide.

Deaths from terrorist attacks are not the same those in accidents.  Terrorists seek to undermine legitimate authority and terrorist violence has a particular resonance.  But the level of terrorist violence seen in the US since 9/11 is not remotely close to undermining our society.  By comparison on the day of the Marathon bombing, 32 people were killed in Iraq.

There is a point at which large scale reactions are needed - after 9/11 or after Oklahoma City for example.  But right now Americans can take comfort in the fact that while every single bad thing is not preventable we are blessed with trained capable professionals who can mitigate the damage and track down the perpetrators and a civilian population that readily supports their professionals in every way possible.

If the Marathon Bombing was the first in a wave, stronger responses may be necessary.  But for now, I'll sign off by citing my friend BJ Tucker who cites the ultimate slogan for resiliency: Keep Calm and Carry On.

Adios Presidente: On the Passing of Hugo Chavez

I used to write a bit about the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  I moved on, there are only so many world affairs one analyst can follow.  Here is a link to past blog-posts about him.  Better, visit the fantastic Caracas Chronicles for serious analytical work on Venezuela under Chavez (and buy their book!).

In retrospect, as far as dictators of the last century go he was a piker.  He was a bully, he expropriated property, and was pretty tough on his opposition.  He tried to export his "revolution" across the region, but without much real success.  While he wrecked Venezuela's economy and marginalized independent media.  During his rule, Venezuela became a drug-trafficking haven and the murder capital of the world.  But, there were no forced labor camps and no mass murders.

It cannot be ignored that Chavez did not arise in a vacuum.  Venezuela is blessed (or cursed) with vast oil wealth.  But Venezuela's elites had failed to govern effectively and the country remained - on the whole - poor.  Chavez appealed to that popular frustration, although unfortunately long-term his policies will only handicap the country further.

Ultimately Chavez was seen as an international buffoon.  He ran the country through his TV talk show Alo Presidente where off-the-cuff pronouncements became policies.  But for all of his zaniness, there were very nasty ideas embedded in his rhetoric. Below is an article I wrote about his Christmas Eve speech of 2005.  (Side-note, my wife translated it for me - if translating the rambling ravings of Hugo Chavez isn't love, I don't know what is!)

Nasser was also seen as a buffoon, but he destroyed much of the modern human capital of Egypt (from which the country has never recovered) and started several awful wars - including a much forgotten war in Yemen in which he used poison gas.  Chavez wasn't that bad.  Is it because he wasn't quite that much of a villain, or because liberal democracy is more firmly rooted in Latin American than in the Middle East and his ideas could only go so far?

It is an interesting question, but hopefully Latin Americans will not see many further experiments along these lines.

Published on The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com)

Blast From the Past

Hugo Chávez veers into anti-Semitism while explaining how to create a workers' paradise.

Aaron Mannes

January 11, 2006 11:00 PM

ON CHRISTMAS EVE, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez's Christian-socialist cant drifted into anti-Semitism. "The world is for all of us," he said, "then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendents of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendents of the same ones that kicked Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world . . . "

These sentiments were not new and Chávez, for his part, has long associated with anti-Semitic figures. One of Chávez's early mentors was the Holocaust-denying Argentine social scientist Norberto Ceresole. Shortly after ascending to the presidency, Chávez wrote to the imprisoned terrorist known as Carlos (who is a Venezuelan national) calling him a distinguished compatriot. In 2000 Chávez became the first head of state to meet with Saddam since the first Gulf War; he even received a Human Rights Award from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. In December, Chávez hosted a meeting of the U.N. Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

But most seriously, Chávez has established an alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has long been the leading state sponsor of terrorism internationally and against Israel. When then Iranian President Mohammed Khatami visited Caracas in March 2005, Chávez voiced his support for Iran's nuclear program and awarded Khatami Venezuela's highest honor, the Order of the Liberator. (There is a Simon Bolivar Street in Tehran.) During this visit the two countries signed 20 agreements to cooperate on economic development projects. These warm relationshave continued under the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has explicitly called for Israel's destruction.

Chávez's anti-Semitism is not restricted to rhetorical support for others, though. In late 2004, after a state prosecutor (and Chávez ally), was assassinated in a car bombing, the state-run television darkly referred to Mossad links to the killing. Venezuelan security forces raided a Jewish private school in Caracas as the school day was beginning. No evidence of any connection to the car bombing was found. It surely cannot be a coincidence that the raid occurred while Chávez was visiting Iran.

Carlos Blanco, writing in the leading Caracas daily, El Universal, noted that, "When a Jew is attacked for being such, we enter a zone of total and absolute risk for the free thinking and existence of all, Jews and non Jews alike." His fears have been borne out.

SINCE CHAVEZ'S FIRST ELECTION IN 1998, Venezuela's ranking in the Freedom House survey of World Freedom has dropped from Free to Partly Free. The report states that in 2004, "Chávez devoted considerable attention during the year to advancing his influence over the judicial system, media, and other institutions of civil society." Chávez's measures include media laws that could be used to imprison reporters for insulting public authorities and institutions and packing the Supreme Court by expanding its membership from 20 to 32 justices. The Chávez government has also undermined property rights by imposing price controls on staples (leading to the predictable shortages) and seizing "underused" ranches without compensation.

Chávez also expanded on these broader ambitions in his Christmas Eve address. According to Chávez, Jesus was "the first socialist of our era . . . and for that they crucified him." He exhorted Venezuelans to be ready "to sacrifice ourselves for others, for the country, for the collective . . . that is how we will save our country and we will help save the world from here."

Most tellingly, he called for the building of a utopian paradise on earth:

To leave the room of poverty is to arrive at a life of dignity, where there is no misery, nor poverty is the Kingdom of God that Christ came to tell us, the Kingdom of Equality, of love, of justice. We have to build that kingdom here, because it is totally false that this Kingdom is in the clouds and that one goes there when one dies. Lie! . . . No, heaven and hell are here among us.

THE LANGUAGE AND SENTIMENTS are distressingly familiar. But Chávez appears determined to initiate his Utopian revolution and buoyed by record oil prices, he has the resources to pursue this vision in Venezuela and to export his revolution throughout the region. Within Venezuela he has launched numerous initiatives. Some, such as building new medical facilities throughout the country, seem laudable (although Fidel Castro provides the medical staffs). Other initiatives are eccentric, such as the government's printing and free distribution of 1 million copies of the classic novels Don Quixote and Les Miserables. Some programs expand Chavez's authority, such as the establishment of Bolivarian Circles. These armed citizen militias were ostensibly formed to defend the country against a U.S. invasion, but have been deployed for violent confrontations with anti-Chávez protestors.

Regionally, Chávez funds radical groups and buys allies with cash and subsidized oil. He has sticks to accompany these carrots. Chávez is funding a regional satellite TV network--a Latin Al Jazeera--to broadcast his vision. Chávez also provides safe havens for Latin America's largest terrorist organization, FARC. His rhetoric and interference in other nations' internal affairs have sparked several high-profile spats with other Latin American nations, most recently with Mexico and Peru.

Internationally Chávez is seen as a populist loudmouth and while his anti-Semitism is condemned, much of his rhetoric is ignored as braggadocio. But his forays into anti-Semitism are merely symptoms of a broader, dysfunctional worldview. Chávez appears intent on replaying the most disastrous political projects of the last century.

Al Gore Redux?

Sunday morning I caught Al Gore on Fareed Zakaria GPS hawking his new book - The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.

He will be 68 years old in 2016 - he could make another run for the Presidency. 

I don't think he will. He is having a good time writing books (his first career, before politics was as a journalist) and making lots of money. Being a politician is not all its cracked up to be, the truth is being a journalist is more fun. His split from Tipper and the sale of Current TV to al-Jazeera might be fodder for the opposition.

Plus, campaigning is hard work and by most accounts Gore did not love it - not the way Clinton did. And running brings with it the risk of losing - one can easily imagine that Gore is not ready to go through that again.

Finally, politics can be like TV - the people want a new face. This goes for many leading political figures. Gore has been on the national stage since his first run for the Presidency in 1988 (25 years ago). This also applies to some other likely candidates. Hillary, in this regard, suffers from her association with her husband - we've now had 20 years of Clintons on the national stage. Biden first entered the Senate in 1973 and ran for President in 1988. Jeb Bush, on the Republican side, suffers similarly. After two Presidents Bush and a Bush in national office for 20 of the past 32 years there is no particular hunger for another President Bush.

The irony is that these well-established figures often have the resources needed to win the nomination, but then can't win the general election against a fresh face. None of this by the way is a comment on the merits of a any of these figures as a potential President. But still, it is an intriguing possibility. If, for whatever reason, Hillary and Biden opt out and none of the Democratic party's 2nd team gets traction in the 2016 primaries, is a draft Gore initiative out of the question?  He remains and impressive, engaging figure who brings up issues that resonate with much of the party's base. And Gore has the intriguing quality of "what might have been" had things in 2000 gone just a little differently.

It makes me think of the end of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises:

“Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.

"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?”