Happy Valentine's Day...I Want To Talk About Al Gore

And now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'd like to talk about Al Gore's speech in Saudi Arabia this weekend. I'll let the exact quotes speak for themselves, and I'll weigh in in brackets:

"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake...the worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."

[Gore is talking about, get this, the fact that the United States made the student visa application process for Saudi students appreciably more difficult after 9/11. Gore either obviously forgot that a.)fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9/11/01 were here on student visas, and b.) that they came from Saudi Arabia. Or not. Either way, I fail to understand how a rational, thoughtful, and informed man could make this statement. I guess if you're not rational, thoughtful, and/or informed you could. Glenn Reynold's put it best: "Only Al Gore could come up with the idea of criticizing Bush for not sucking up to the Saudis enough."]

Associated Press wrote this:

"Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed 'terrible abuses' against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been 'indiscriminately rounded up' and held in 'unforgivable' conditions."

[I'm all for knowing if this is true. But this is the first I've heard of it, and if it did happen (and in all likelihood, it did), I'd like to know who was "terribly abused", and whether they were held in "unforgivable" conditions. More to the point, if Gore were so concerned about this, why is he saying this in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and not in the United States (which essentially means his comments will get played all over the Arab world, which already spouts dangerous agit-prop to begin with)? As I previously said, that there was mass round-up, I do not doubt. How many of these people were on illegal work or student visas? According to Bill O'Reilly (who I don't always agree with, but I believe his research on this point), all of 70 people were rounded up, with all of 13 having been falsely detained, though quickly released. O'Reilly called Gore's people about THEIR source material, but was told, in essence, to stick it. This is an Eason Jordan moment for Gore, in my opinion. Jordan, if you recall, said at a conference in Europe last year (Davos?) that the United States Military was deliberately targeting journalists. At first he denied he said it, but when an audio of his speech was produced, he couldn't produce any evidence of his contention. He soon lost his job as head of CNN News. Execrable though Gore's charge is, as he said it on foreign (enemy?) soil, he can redeem himself somewhat if he backs up his claim. I doubt he can.]