Had Clinton proposed this plan, I sadly concede that at the time the Rs would have likely attacked it as "fiscally irresponsible" and as a lame attempt to "emulate JFK" because of inherent anti-Clinton party bias. Sad.

That being said, Gore is particularly disengenuous here after his self-promoted career of being the space expert. Let's look at the record. Back after the '92 election he promised to cut costs on the space station and accelerate the schedule. I posted the Houston Chronical articles to that effect on MSNBC several times. We all know how THAT turned out during the following 8 years. And then there was his much-touted X-33 billion dollar hangar queen boondoggle. Remember algore was "in charge" of the Clinton era space progream. Finally, he really reformed space shuttle operations and improved them, didn't he. The guy is a phony. And a lying flip-floping phony, now exposed for the pseudo-scientific "Earth in the Balance" fraud that he really is at his rotten core.

-p (will say how I REALLY feel later)