Gore rips Bush as right-wing ideologue

Former Vice President Al Gore yesterday painted the Bush administration as filled with rigid ideologues who ignore facts in order to adhere to their policies, as he sought to invigorate the Democratic base for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

“In every way, John Kerry and John Edwards represent an approach to government that is the opposite of the Bush-Cheney approach,” Mr. Gore said in a 90-minute speech yesterday at Georgetown University — sponsored by the political arm of the liberal group Moveon.org.

“Where Bush remains out of touch, Kerry is a proud member of the reality-based community. Where Bush will bend to his corporate backers, Kerry stands strongly with the public interest.”

Mr. Gore said Mr. Bush’s misguided foreign and domestic policies aren’t the result of stupidity or religious zeal, but because Mr. Bush is a right-wing ideologue unwilling to change course when facts contradict him.

“I know President Bush is plenty smart, and … I’m convinced that most of the president’s frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with right-wing ideology than with the Bible,” Mr. Gore said.

Mr. Gore focused largely on Iraq, saying the Bush administration gave the American people many false impressions about the war and the resulting situation, including the belief that Saddam Hussein was primarily responsible for the September 11 attack — a belief held by 70 percent of the public in November 2002 according to Time magazine.

Americans were also led to believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Saddam was preparing to give those weapons to al Qaeda and Iraqis would happily welcome U.S. troops to liberate them.

“Every single one of these impressions was wrong,” he said, calling it “deception.”

And now, he said, Mr. Bush paints a positive picture of the current situation in Iraq, when in reality the country is “in flames, with a growing U.S. casualty rate and a growing prospect of a civil war.”

Mr. Gore said the same has happened on domestic issues. Mr. Bush promised his “massive tax cut” would stimulate the economy and jobs and now “we face the largest deficits in the history of our nation,” he said.

“As was the case with Iraq policy, the administration actively suppressed the publication of facts and figures from his own Treasury Department analysts that were inconveniently in conflict with his own,” Mr. Gore asserted.

But David Winston, a Republican analyst, said the characterization of Mr. Bush as a rigid right-wing ideologue “is simply not who this president is.” He leans to the right on taxes and other issues, but leans towards the middle on other issues — working with Democrats to get a Medicare prescription drug bill and a massive infusion into the country’s education system, Mr Winston said.

Mr. Wilson also said the argument that the administration told the public there was a connection between Saddam and September 11 is just a “red herring” used by Democrats repeatedly this year. “This president has never said that,” Mr. Winston said.

“I think Gore’s trying to find a role for himself since the last campaign, without much success,” Mr. Winston said.

For his part, Mr. Gore opened his speech by joking that he is a “recovered politician” who is, “on about step nine.”

According to the 12steps.com Web site, step nine for recovering alcoholics is to make amends to people you have hurt.