That was emphatically not my argument.

that Gore would have dealt with 9-11 and Iraq in the same way, or denied the climate crisis, is patently absurd.

Which was not the argument. I actually liked and like Al Gore, the question is what would have happened in practice. That he would have dealt with Iraq in a Desert Fox way, that Repubs would have assaulted him endlessly after 9/11 whatever he did (a real 'war on terror' would last long years and would show up no spectacular successes), that Congress Repubs would have blocked him, that the Democrats would have continued to be in the spell of the DLC, and that not much would have happened in practice about Kyoto (though more than had Nader not made his candidacy: Al Gore ended his total silence on environmental issues once he feared losing votes in that direction), and that Repubs would probably have won by a landslide in 2004, doing much more damage afterwards than they could in the past six, is unfortunately also likely.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}