http://www.stewwebb.com
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1131&slug=Gore
Thursday, August 12, 2004 · Last updated 12:20 p.m. PT
Gore criticizes Bush's CIA director pick
By JOHN GEROME
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
|
|
|
|
Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., left, nominated to be the next CIA director, talks to Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2004, prior to a House Select Intelligence Committee hearing on recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. In background are commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton second from right and Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former Vice President Al Gore charged Thursday that President Bush's nomination of Republican Rep. Porter Goss to lead the CIA continues the president's pattern of using the Sept. 11 tragedy for political benefit.
Gore, in a speech to the Music Row Democrats, said that with the selection of Goss, an eight-term congressman from Florida, Bush "just thumbed his nose" at the bipartisan commission established to investigate the attacks.
Gore said the commission recommended a change in the structure of intelligence-gathering and the creation of a new position to coordinate intelligence. Gore called a Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee since 1997, a "partisan ally" of Bush who is "experienced in bitterly criticizing the Democratic nominee on the subject of the war and on the subject of intelligence-gathering."
"Is that the best person to come in and fix all these problems that the 9/11 commission told us about - when he's been out there as a partisan advocate dividing people on the subject of war and on the subject of intelligence?" Gore said.
The Tennessee Democrat said he know Goss personally, likes him and thinks he's a capable person.
"But a president of the United States who is genuinely and deeply concerned with healing the wounds of the nation and bringing us together as a people and doing everything possible to learn the lessons of 9/11 and implement the recommendations of that commission and make sure that it would not happen again would not appoint a partisan director," Gore to said to loud applause.
About 340 members of Music Row Democrats, a group formed this year by the city's recording industry to counter the image of country music as a bastion for Republicans, attended and frequently interrupted his remarks with applause.
Among those in the crowd were Gore's wife Tipper and artists Steve Earle and Hal Ketchum.
