DBWI: Bush won in 2000

MrHola

Banned
Now that November is getting closer and closer, I wonder, after eight years of Al Gore, how America would look like if George W. Bush won in 2000. In OTL, the election was extremely close, so a Bush victory is fairly reasonable. The biggest question is the attempted terrorist attack in September. In OTL, Gore’s response was to form an international coalition and send troops into Afghanistan. Would Bush do the same? What about Enron?
 
The biggest question is the attempted terrorist attack in September. In OTL, Gore’s response was to form an international coalition and send troops into Afghanistan. Would Bush do the same?
Absolutely. Remember, Bush would've brought all the Project-for-a-New-American-Century people in with him - none of them had any qualms about invading countries (didn't they explicitly point out Iraq and Libya as places to make "regime changes"?). But I don't think a President George Bush Jr would've done what Gore did in distancing the USA from Saudi Arabia - especially because of the ties between the Bush and Saud dynasties.
 
There is talk in many Republican circles that the 8 years of Al Gore in office helped to forge the political coalitions that have placed former General Colin Powell in place to seize the Republican Party nomination in St. Paul, Minnesota next week. The fact that Vice-President Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) was almost left from the speakers list at the Democratic Convention in Denver, CO shows that party still has many rifts to mend since 2001. The fact that Senator Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) is openly endorsing Powell at the Republican Convention also speaks to the many rifts that have taken place.
 
during the election, Bush made a lot of noise about wanting to be the 'education president' (hey, his wife used to be a teacher).... what do you suppose he'd done any different, so far as education goes?
 
I'm sure Bush was a decent fellow personally but Texas has the weakest state government in the nation so things proceeding fairly smoothly during his tenure as governor really doesn't mean much.

If things had gone poorly under Clinton Texas under Bush would have done poorly.

Fortunately the nation did well under Clinton so Bush's performence was acceptable.

None of which means he could have handled the presidency. Didn't the party make him take Cheney, a Washington insider and administrator, as his running mate, proving even the GOP leadership felt he was a light weight?
 
Something to add: if Bush did win in 2000, he'd be a one-termer for sure. The guy's a frickin' Dan Quayle clone - the Democrats would probably win quite comfortably in 2004 as long as they put someone up who can string a sentence together.

It probably wouldn't be Lieberman though - the guy's pissed off the Democrats enough in OTL, imagine what he'd be like if he & Gore had lost. How about Hillary Rodham Clinton? (Heh - then you'd have Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, wouldn't you?)
 
Absolutely. Remember, Bush would've brought all the Project-for-a-New-American-Century people in with him - none of them had any qualms about invading countries (didn't they explicitly point out Iraq and Libya as places to make "regime changes"?). But I don't think a President George Bush Jr would've done what Gore did in distancing the USA from Saudi Arabia - especially because of the ties between the Bush and Saud dynasties.
Then again, Gore had little problem restoring ties with other unsavory Middle Eastern religious states: like, say Iran.

Now don't get me wrong: while lots of Republicans (and a good number of Democrats) have screamed bloody murder about the restoration of ties with Iran, I see and can understand the reasoning. I have a relative in the Pentagon, you see, and he was able to give me the inside view of what was in the minds of people at the time. That attempted plot back in '01 really scared a lot of people in certain circles, not least because it was only caught in the final stages because some drunkard* got in a car-wreck with one of the would-be hijackers who had documents in his car. The leading brass got nervous once they realized that they had no real way to stop such a thing once it got started (like NORAD's lack of inner con-US radar to find a hijacked plane if it turned its beacon off), and once it was realized how many of those wannabes were Saudi...

Well, if you're going to have unpleasant associates, you might as well diversify and dilute them as best as possible, right? And to be fair, it could have been much worse. At least Gore was lucky enough to be able to make peace while Iran had a reformist in the Presidency, even if the power still sticks with the Ayatollah. So now we have two oil-rich supplier-allies who fund terrorists, but at least we can sort-of play them off each other. In theory.

I still wouldn't want to go over there to visit, though. Still not safe to be publicly aethiest, in Iran or Saudi.

(Fun fact: the drunk man was a Republican consultant on Bush's 2000 campaign. Imagine where he might be, or rather might not have been, had Bush won?)


I still don't like Gore's approach to the UN, though. It's been a waste of time and effort in most every regard, and it makes the arch-conservatives sound better when some of the loonies like Ann Coulter say ditch the whole thing. Sudan would still be a human rights disaster under debate at the UN if Gore hadn't actually lost patience for once, and we all know how useful the UN has been with Palestine, the Tripoli WMD program, or the recent Georgia crisis.

And let's not even mention the farce that Iraq has become, where Saddam is free to do as he wants and the UN inspectors give a conflicting report every six monthes...

But still, it's not like anything has been dystopic in the last eight years, say what you will about it.
 
I'm actually in favour of the Iran thing. Closer ties to Iran from the West can only strengthen Iran's reformist movement, and weaken the position of the old arch-conservative "America-Is-The-Great-Satan!" Koran-thumpers. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is a brutal absolute monarchy with a population who, if given the choice, would institute a just-as-brutal religious-fundamentalist dictatorship.
 
I'm actually in favour of the Iran thing. Closer ties to Iran from the West can only strengthen Iran's reformist movement, and weaken the position of the old arch-conservative "America-Is-The-Great-Satan!" Koran-thumpers. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is a brutal absolute monarchy with a population who, if given the choice, would institute a just-as-brutal religious-fundamentalist dictatorship.
In other words, Saudi would become what Iran has been.

Yeah, not the fairest punch, but be honest. There is no need for rose-tinted lenses for Iran, because the Reformist Movement remains only as powerful as the country's leadership wants it to be. Iran is only less brutal because most of its leaders have mellowed in their older age since the revolution. Few of the youthes who took the embassy hostage are still that radical now adays.

Bush ran against nation building. If he'd won we probably wouldn't still be tied down in Afghanistan.
Maybe. Only if he also lucked out on the terrorist attack, and hence wouldn't have gone in. Even with the failed attack, Gore was pretty content to 'restrain' himself to cruise missile strikes until everyone realized that the leadership decapitation had thrown the country into total anarchy (almost on accident, in retrospect).
 
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