Alternate Universe where AL GORE is president, dammit

[ochazuke]

if we lived in a democracy...or "what a difference a (supreme court) vote makes"

Dateline Washington D.C., September 2005

Today President Gore praised the rapid and well-coordinated response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to aid flood victims in New Orleans. With the Secretary of FEMA by his side, Gore said "This is what government is for. The private sector would never have been able to do this." In recent months, Republican congressional leaders have questioned aloud the necessity of keeping FEMA as a cabinet-level department, and suggested it be privatized.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, support for the president's marshland initiative is growing as it becomes apparent that decades of environmental destruction in Louisiana worsened the impact of hurricane Katrina. Opposition from Republicans has been nearly unanimous. Land developers, who are leading the lobbyist opposition to the initiative, have been heavy contributors to Republican congressional campaigns in recent elections.

In overseas news, the trial of Osama Bin Laden is set to begin in Afghanistan this week. The capture of the alleged terrorist financier was the crowning achievement of America's July 2001 Operation Rollback. Republicans and many in the media insist that president Gore's aggressive move to capture Arab terrorists overseas was primarily a move designed to improve the president's political standing in his push for a 'radical environmentalist agenda'. Moreover, to date, no proof has yet been found that Bin Laden and one Mohamed Atta, captured within the United States about a month after Bin Laden, were behind a plot to pull off an attack within the United States, possibly involving multiple and simultaneous airline hijackings. Spokesmen for the major airlines have said that the possibility of hijacking a plane is nearly impossible thanks to their extremely rigid security measures.

President Gore survived a Senate impeachment vote in 2002 in which the proceedings were based on the allegation that Gore had lied about the reasons behind Operation Rollback, which led to the deaths of over 60 American servicemen.