Gore won't rule out presidential run

In an interview with GQ, he again emphasizes he has "no plans" to run, but won't rule out the possibility...leaving room for hope:

So if you decide to run, do you think we would see the Al Gore from the movie? Or the Al Gore from 2000?
Well, I don’t plan to run. I don’t plan to run. And I don’t expect to run.

How many times a day does somebody ask you this?
Well, I'm doing a lot of interviews and it's on the list of questions. For every one of them. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that people think enough of me still in that world to ask that question. It's true that I haven't, uh, gotten to the point where I am willing to completely rule it out for all time. But, that is really more a matter of the internal shifting of gears. I'm not making plans to run again.

But you’re not ruling it out?
Uh... no. [smiles]

Al Gore should have been sworn into office back in 2000. It didn't happen, but I pray that Al will make the decision to run again. America needs a statesman, a man of principle, someone with deep convictions and progressive values. After 2000 a lot of Democrats believed Gore was not a very good campaigner. And perhaps he isn't the greatest. But if he runs again, I believe he will win over America.

Gore and other Democratic candidates have suffered from bad advice, bad strategy, and poor campaign decision making. Christine Gregoire almost lost the 2004 gubernatorial race here in Washington State because her campaign was lackluster and uninspiring. Yet she has been a very strong governor, a very strong leader, whose proposals have been repeatedly approved by both the Legislature and the electorate.

It almost hurts to think about what a Gore presidency these last six years might have been like. Gore was actually asked about September 11th in the interview.

Okay, on to 9-11. What were you really feeling? Was there a part of you that felt a sense of relief that you weren’t in charge that day?
You mean a sense of relief that I didn’t have to deal with it? Oh no. Not at all. Not for one second. Not for one second. Why would I? I mean, well first of all, it just didn’t occur to me to feel anything like that. What did occur to me was to feel what every American felt, the outrage and anger and righteous anger, and support for the President at a time of danger… And, honestly, I was focused on the reality of the situation. And I wasn’t president, so, you know, it wasn’t about me. Now, I do wish, now that we have some distance from the events, and we have all this knowledge about what this administration did do, I certainly feel that I wish that it had been handled differently, and I do wish that I had somehow been able to prevent some of the catastrophic mistakes that were made.

Really? How about all the warnings?
That’s a separate question. And it’s almost too easy to say, "I would have heeded the warnings." In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail. And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way.

It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, "Well, you’ve covered your ass." And never called a follow up meeting. Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it.

And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job. And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off!

And I don’t know why — honestly — I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay? I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage?

And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing. I understand how it could sound that way. [Practically screaming now]

But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!

Amen. You can read the whole interview here.