I doubt if there'd have been much difference in the way Gore responded to September 11th. Maybe there's a fair chance that the Holy Land confrontation would have developed a little less catastrophically. Rewriting past history in that kind of way is entertaining, but not very useful.

Looking forward one thing I confidently predict is that this is going to be one of those historical periods that a lot of people are going to be deeply embarrassed and ashamed of.

Of course a cynic might say that all historical periods are like that when you get down to it - but any place where the state is allowed to listen in on lawyers with their clients, including those who haven't been either convicted of anything or even accused of anything, is well on the way to being totalitarian.