Al Gore — with his gloves off

By James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES Al Gore's tougher approach aims to please Democratic partisans who may think John Kerry's campaign isn't being tough enough.

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Consider his blistering address yesterday at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington: Under President Bush, the "systematic abuse of the truth and institutionalization of dishonesty [are] a routine part of the policy process."

Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison is "the Bush Gulag."

The administration's official and unofficial "rapid response" defenders against critical news media are "digital brownshirts."

Turns out Gore didn't need Naomi Wolf's earth tones to project a more aggressive alpha-male personality. He's all blue suits and starched shirts these days. Gone are the political handlers from Election 2000 with their do-this-try-that transformations.

"Because he has the freedom of not being a candidate, he can go further and perhaps be blunter," said Democratic strategist Anita Dunn, a top adviser to former Sen. Bill Bradley during the 2000 Democratic presidential primaries. "To that extent, that is something that is very attractive to base voters and many Democrats who feel he actually got elected in 2000."

Gore won more than 500,000 more votes nationwide than Bush did in the 2000 election, but Bush won the Electoral College majority, and the presidency, after the Supreme Court ended a recount in Florida.

As Kerry adopts a more moderate tone in search of independent voters, Gore can satisfy the hard-core Democratic partisans who may think Kerry isn't being tough enough on Bush.

Advisers and aides to Kerry and Gore said the two men speak regularly, but that they don't try to coordinate their messages.

Gore yesterday accused Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of misleading the public with continued assertions that Saddam Hussein had close links to al-Qaida, a claim rejected in a draft report by the independent commission examining the Sept. 11 attacks.

"If he's not lying, if they genuinely believe that, that makes them unfit in the battle with al-Qaida," Gore said of Bush and Cheney. "If they believe these flimsy scraps, then who would want them in charge? Are they too dishonest or too gullible? Take your pick."
 
Bush and Cheney were so effective, Gore noted, that nearly three of four Americans believed Saddam had a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Many of those Americans still support the war against Iraq, Gore added, despite mounting evidence that there was no link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.

Gore also scolded the media for being cowed by the administration. He was just as tough on the Republican-controlled Congress, saying it's "virtually abdicated its constitutional role to serve as an independent and coequal branch of government."

Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman accused Gore yesterday of "another gravely false attack on the president" and lumped him into "John Kerry's coalition of the wild-eyed." For many Democrats, that's not bad company for Gore.