Tigermike 3,050 Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Was "Oily Al" in search of 2008 campaign money? Al Gore’s Arab PanderBy Lowell Ponte February 14, 2006 Al Gore, the Vice President under President Bill Clinton and the losing 2000 Democratic Party presidential candidate, last Sunday was in Saudi Arabia, bad-mouthing the United States. Was Gore’s motive money and political ambition? America’s government committed “terrible abuses†against Arabs following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Gore told a Saudi audience at the Jiddah Economic Forum. Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up,†said Gore, and held in “unforgivable†conditions. Gore did not mention that 15 of the 19 terrorists who carried out mass murder on September 11 in the United States were Saudis. Nor did Gore mention that his fellow leftists such as filmmaker Michael Moore had, until their claim was discredited, accused President George W. Bush of being too kind towards Saudi Arabs. President Bush, they falsely claimed, had allowed members of the large bin Laden family (from which al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama is an estranged black sheep) to leave the United States without being questioned by authorities. “The worst thing we can possibly do,†Gore told the Arab audience, “is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States.†“Gore refused to be drawn into questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,†wrote Associated Press reporter Jim Krane. “We can’t solve that long conflict in exchanges here,†Gore told his Saudi audience, thereby refusing to say any word in support of Israel. Gore chose as his vice presidential running mate in 2000 Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, a devout Jew and unabashed supporter of Israel. Jewish Americans had for decades been among the constituency groups that voted disproportionately for Democratic candidates. But in the pivotal state of Michigan, America’s Muslim population now exceeds that of Jews, as may soon be the case nationwide. More importantly, Muslim money from such voters and even more so from abroad is becoming an influential factor in America’s presidential elections. In October 2003 aspiring Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts traveled to Dearborn, Michigan, to speak before an Arab-American conference. In this speech Mr. Kerry trashed Israel’s anti-terrorist security fence, calling this purely defensive measure “provocative and counterproductive,†declaring it would “increase hardships to the Palestinian people.†“We do not need another barrier to peace,†Kerry said of Israel’s fence to the supportive Arab-American audience. In 2004, Kerry’s campaign marked a shift by Democrats away from their traditional Jewish constituency towards a subtle “anti-Zionism†that could appeal to a global constituency of oil-rich Muslims. This shift is being driven by demographics, money, and anti-Israel/anti-American activists who have taken control of the Democratic Party. By 2008, a Democratic Party dependent on funds from Muslim oil interests and multinational radical billionaires like George Soros (who funneled more than $27 million to Kerry in 2003-4, he said, to make the United States weaker in the world) could become surreal. It likely will feature Democratic presidential candidates vying to be the most anti-American and anti-Semitic. (In such a contest today, Hillary Clinton with her long and discomforting track record on anti-Semitism could easily win). No wonder Al Gore no longer voices support for Israel when speaking to wealthy Arabs. Oil money has been “Ali Baba†Gore’s magic carpet to political power and, he hopes, could be so again. Israel’s fence has been opposed by terrorist groups, among them Hamas, winner of the recent Palestinian election. Hamas and similar groups have received significant financial support from the radical Islamist regime in Iran. But so, it appears, have John Kerry and Al Gore. One of the largest political contributors to Kerry and Gore has been Iranian Hassan Nemazee, who has filed lawsuits denying Iranian expatriot accusations that he acts as a conduit for cash and lobbying influence for Iran’s theocratic mullahs. Nemazee, as this column reported, contributed more than $180,000 to Kerry’s primary campaign. Nemazee also raised $250,000 for Al Gore in November 1995. Nemazee and his family also contributed the legal maximum of $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund and slushed another $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. In 2000, Nemazee gave $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund. The source of such money is, of course, oil. But oil wealth is nothing new to Albert Gore Jr. His senator father’s fortune and son Gore’s own portfolio today have gotten the lion’s share of their money from Occidental Petroleum and its eccentric head Armand Hammer, whose father founded the Communist Party USA and before his death acknowledged carrying millions of dollars in cash from Moscow to fund the CPUSA. The Gore family has controlled up to $1 million worth of Occidental stock, and Al Gore Jr. has pocketed up to $20,000 per year by leasing mineral rights on Gore property to an Occidental zinc mining operation cited for polluting the adjacent Tennessee River. Despite an apparent conflict of interest that this column reported in 2000, the Clinton-Gore administration in 1997 allowed Occidental Petroleum to buy 47,000 acres of the U.S. Navy’s Elk Hills strategic oil reserve near Bakersfield, California, for only $100 per acre. This purchase tripled Occidental’s corporate oil reserve and boosted the value of its stock by about 10 percent – and Gore family shares by about $100,000. (Interestingly, Elk Hills was also involved in the Teapot Dome scandal, which erupted because Republican President Warren G. Harding’s Interior Secretary in 1921 sold access to it to private oil interests.) Gore even had the chutzpah to hire a firm to assess the “environmental cost†of this Occidental-Elk Hills deal – the firm of ICF Kaiser on whose Board of Directors sat Gore’s future campaign chairman, the former California Congressman who resigned under a cloud of financial scandal Tony Coehlo. Coehlo, further enriched by Gore’s shell game, would also later be a campaign director in 2004 for John Kerry. Luckily for Gore, the leftist national media is eager to cover up Democratic scandals and corruption. Occidental, incidentally, has oil interests in many nations, among them Russia and the Muslim nations of Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Libya, and Pakistan. Despite his environmentalist hysteria, Gore has rightly earned the nickname “Oily Al.†How strange it is that the so-called mainstream media relentlessly accuses President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of somehow being linked to Big Oil but never exposes how former Vice President Al Gore’s life and entire political career have been largely fueled by oil wealth. Like most other politicians who want to be the Democratic standard-bearer in 2008, Al Gore has a problem. New York Senator Hillary Clinton may be unpopular with many in her party, but she has gotten commitments from most partisan and left-wing money men and kingmakers, having already amassed a war chest estimated at more than $150 million in political cash and IOUs. She has preemptively sucked up most Democratic seed money in the political system, leaving little for would-be opponents. Al Gore and the other rivals to Senator Clinton will need lots of money to overcome her mountain of cash. Gore, apparently in search of money last Sunday, literally went to the well of Saudi Arabia to bow in supplication before its sheiks. Gore has gone on his knees to other gods before, from Buddhist monks to the mullahs of Iran. Nobody should be surprised to see him on his knees in Saudi Arabia, putting his lips at the service of the propaganda of Islamist terrorists. But how can any sane American ever believe or support such an oil-stained, prostituted politician who apparently hates his country? link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AURaptor 1,126 Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 I've heard more than a few people, citizens and radio personalities alike, declare Gore's comments to be treasonous. He definatly has made some wild claims which need to be supported by him, or else make an apology. But don't look for either to happen any time soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proud Tiger 4,261 Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 Even Susan Estrich, a huge Dempcrat, said on TV tonight that she thought Gore was way out of bounds eith his comments.In all seriousness, what in the world is going on with the Dems? Gore, Jimmy Carter, Dean, Kennedy.......on and on. If I were a Dem. I would really be ticked. They couldn't do any better if they were openly campaigning for Republicans. I would love to see one of those guys with a padded vest come up and give Al Gore a big hug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigermike 3,050 Posted February 15, 2006 Author Share Posted February 15, 2006 February 15, 2006Al Gore: International Man of Mystery By Tom Bevan And so the saga of Al Gore continues. Gore seems to have tired of giving his regularly scheduled harangue of the Bush administration to domestic audiences, because this week he took his podium-pounding show on the road. On Sunday at a major international economic forum in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Gore decried the treatment of Arabs in the United States after September 11, telling the crowd that many had been “indiscriminately rounded up†and “held in conditions that were just unforgivable." Gore criticized America’s current visa policy as “thoughtless†and “a mistake†and then apologized for the “terrible abuses†Arabs have suffered in America since 9/11. This is a new twist on a recurring theme. We’ve gotten used to some – usually the Hollywood set – berating the United States from the enlightened confines of Western Europe. We’ve seen low ranking elected liberals like Jim McDermott of Washington and David Bonior of Michigan show up on enemy soil in Iraq to denounce the United States. And we’ve also watched members of the Democratic leadership at home compare the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Nazi concentration camps and Soviet Gulags. But Gore’s remarks set a new standard. Al Gore is the former Vice President of the United States and one of the most recognizable American political figures in the world. His accusation of the “indiscriminate†abuse of Arabs in the United States is disgracefully irresponsible not only because it is a grotesque misrepresentation of fact but because it was delivered in the country that is the epicenter of extremist Wahabbism, and the home of Osama bin Laden as well as 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for killing more than 3,000 innocent Americans four and half years ago. As with most things in politics and diplomacy, context is everything. Gore didn’t need to fly half way around the world to apologize to Muslims living, working and going to school in America after 9/11. And if Gore believed America’s treatment of Muslims after September 11 to be so shameful, why hadn’t he made it the centerpiece of one of the numerous, widely covered speeches he’s given in the last few years? But the bigger mystery is this: did Gore really think his comments were beneficial to the United States of America? Was he putting the interests of his country first? Did he believe making an exaggerated claim of U.S. abuse of Muslims and then apologizing for it on Middle Eastern soil would somehow help build goodwill for the United States in the Islamic world? To the contrary, the damage done by Gore’s willingness to stand in the heart of the Islamic world and confirm the most deeply held fears and prejudices of Muslims against the United States by grossly exaggerating the treatment of Arabs after 9/11 far outweighs any goodwill he may have generated with an apology. There has to be another calculation involved: namely, that Gore was trying to build goodwill for himself (both in the Muslim world and with crucial constituencies at home) by claiming rampant abuse of Muslims in America and then offering a personal apology. Simply put, Gore took the opportunity to make himself look good by making his country look bad. And what about the substance of what Gore said on America’s current visa policy? Last month he ripped the Bush administration over a program designed to eavesdrop on conversations between suspected terrorists overseas and persons in the United States. Now Gore bemoans the tighter restrictions placed on visitors traveling to the United States from countries that have a higher likelihood of producing terrorists. Gore is against eavesdropping on potential terrorist communications and he’s against tighter screens for visitors originating from Islamic countries. So exactly what would America’s national security policy look like under a Gore administration? For the sake of the country, that’s one mystery best left unsolved. Tom Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentar...5_06_Bevan.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexbo 104 Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 And this guy was a few votes from being President during 9/11?!?!? What a true horror that thought is; Saddam still in power, Saudi extremists with free run all over the US, and Iran wouldn't even be blinking an eye in their push for a nuclear weapon. In fact, it isn't far fetched to believe that Israel would be gone and the Middle East would be dominated by extreme Islamic, terrorist supporting regimes, including Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Middle East would resemble Europe in the early 1940's, instead of 50 million people growing their new found democratically elected, legitimate governments... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LegalEagle 22 Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 And this guy was a few votes from being President during 9/11?!?!? What a true horror that thought is; Saddam still in power, Saudi extremists with free run all over the US, and Iran wouldn't even be blinking an eye in their push for a nuclear weapon. In fact, it isn't far fetched to believe that Israel would be gone and the Middle East would be dominated by extreme Islamic, terrorist supporting regimes, including Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Middle East would resemble Europe in the early 1940's, instead of 50 million people growing their new found democratically elected, legitimate governments... 220289[/snapback] Are you off your meds again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexbo 104 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 And this guy was a few votes from being President during 9/11?!?!? What a true horror that thought is; Saddam still in power, Saudi extremists with free run all over the US, and Iran wouldn't even be blinking an eye in their push for a nuclear weapon. In fact, it isn't far fetched to believe that Israel would be gone and the Middle East would be dominated by extreme Islamic, terrorist supporting regimes, including Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Middle East would resemble Europe in the early 1940's, instead of 50 million people growing their new found democratically elected, legitimate governments... 220289[/snapback] Are you off your meds again? 220382[/snapback] Point me to one thing that Al Gore has said that he would do differently (since 9/11) that leads you to believe that if he were President during that time that the US would be safer, and that the Middle East would be moving progessively to democratically elected Governments???? He would never, ever, ever even tried to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban, much less the Iraqi people from Saddam. You are on some serious meds if you believe that the world would be a better place today with the Taliban and Saddam still in power, over 4 years after 9/11... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proud Tiger 4,261 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 And this guy was a few votes from being President during 9/11?!?!? What a true horror that thought is; Saddam still in power, Saudi extremists with free run all over the US, and Iran wouldn't even be blinking an eye in their push for a nuclear weapon. In fact, it isn't far fetched to believe that Israel would be gone and the Middle East would be dominated by extreme Islamic, terrorist supporting regimes, including Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Middle East would resemble Europe in the early 1940's, instead of 50 million people growing their new found democratically elected, legitimate governments... 220289[/snapback] Are you off your meds again? 220382[/snapback] Point me to one thing that Al Gore has said that he would do differently (since 9/11) that leads you to believe that if he were President during that time that the US would be safer, and that the Middle East would be moving progessively to democratically elected Governments???? He would never, ever, ever even tried to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban, much less the Iraqi people from Saddam. You are on some serious meds if you believe that the world would be a better place today with the Taliban and Saddam still in power, over 4 years after 9/11... 220426[/snapback] Maybe it's not meds but a learning disability Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarTim 3,457 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 On the other hand, maybe he is RIGHT and you just don't want to hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proud Tiger 4,261 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 On the other hand, maybe he is RIGHT and you just don't want to hear it. 220501[/snapback] Wt....one of us is reading it wrong. Are you suggesting he could be right that the world would be a bettter place if Gore had been elected? Doesn't sound like WT to me!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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