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Gore's Russian Fans

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5/12/00 6:05 p.m.
Gore’s Russian Fans
It’s what Vice President Gore doesn’t have to say about National Missile Defense that moves the Kremlin to praise him.

By NR Staff

ccording to a recent Reuters story out of Moscow, "Russia’s Foreign Ministry praised the foreign policy of Vice-President and Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore Friday, saying his objectives tended to coincide with those of the Kremlin."

Now, there’s an interesting news item. Assuming the 1996 endorsement by the Communist Chinese of President Clinton and Vice President Gore still stands, Internet Al can now add another impressive endorsement to his list of foreign supporters. Where will he get his next endorsement? Kim Jong Il? Fidel Castro? Depending on where the Vice President is today on Elian, this one may still be doable.

But let’s return to the coinciding objectives noted by the Russian Foreign Ministry. This can mean only one of two things: Either the Kremlin is interested in supporting U.S. foreign policy, or the Vice President is roughly on the same page as the Kremlin. Let’s go to the videotape.

Consider, for example, what Candidate Gore’s website says about National Missile Defense: Nothing. But the campaign’s "Foreign Policy and National Defense" paper does note the Vice President’s broader views on American security: "A strong economy, a clean environment, and peace and security do go hand in hand." They do? If so, let’s get the military picking up cigarette butts as soon as possible.

We know the Kremlin doesn’t like National Missile Defense. At every opportunity, senior Russian officials insist that they have no intention of changing the ABM Treaty. They like it just the way it is, which may work out in the end, as Russian intransigence will only make it easier for a President Bush to walk away from this piece of Cold War detritus.

Perhaps it’s what Vice President Gore doesn’t have to say about National Missile Defense that moves the Kremlin to praise him. Of course, the Vice President did — in a speech billed as a major national-security and foreign-policy effort in Boston on April 30 — find time to criticize Governor Bush’s views on National Missile Defense as "dangerously fixate[d] on the Cold War past," while calling for "a new generation of thinking."

In the coming election, the American people will have the opportunity to cast their votes for two men with radically different views on protecting America against ICBMs. Governor Bush believes there is no greater responsibility for government; Vice President Gore believes…well, apparently what the Kremlin believes.

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