Doug, you pose an interesting question. I think there are some similarities between the Bush response, and the likely Gore response, to the 9/11 attacks. For the most part, I think Gore would have followed the same script with respect to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and he would have had the benefit of some expert advisors in doing so, as Bush has. [I'm not sure who his Secretary of State would have been, but his predecessor boss had one of the best we've ever had in Madeleine Albright.]

I don't know whether Gore would have been as good at crystallizing the issues and communicating American resolve as Bush has been. Frankly, I never considered Bush to be a very effective communicator, but he surprised and impressed me with the clarity and vigor of his immediate response to the attacks, his framing of the issues, his address to Congress, etc. Gore has always had trouble losing the wooden, over-rehearsed (and seemingly insincere) aspect to his public presentations, and I think this trouble might have continued to plague him even after the attacks, when the times called for a strong and sincere statement of American anger and resolve. But for the most part, I think the two men would have responded to that event similarly.

I think that the major difference between Gore and Bush would have been in their level of engagement in the Middle East prior to the attacks. During the 2000 campaign Bush spoke very disparagingly about our level of diplomatic engagement in the world's trouble spots, and our efforts at "nation building," and his Administration's rapid withdrawal from significant diplomatic involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian situation showed that he meant what he said. In retrospect, I think he realizes that he was wrong to disengage so completely from the region, and he now recognizes that US interests are inextricably tied to the fate of that region of the world. Gore knew this all along; I think that he would have stayed engaged, and that continuing American participation/mediation would have prevented that situation from getting so completely out of control (remember, the closest the parties ever got to a sustainable peace was during Clinton's watch). That is critically important, and has consequences beyond Israel's borders. For that reason I think the world might be in better shape today if Gore had made it to the White house.

Nader never had a shot at the White House, and he knew it, of course. If by some fluke he had gotten in, it would have been a disaster. He can be a pretty effective gadfly, but that's not much of a qualification for the Presidency.