My guess is Al Gore would have handled it pretty much the same way George Bush did. President's don't take over and grab the controls like an aviator does when the autopilot unexpectedly disengages. There are contingency plans dusted off, advisors consulted, emergency scenarios rehearsed, in short, there is a certain amount of inertia in the ship of state, and it takes a while before she starts to answer to rudder commands--especially since some of them are pre-programmed way ahead of time.

GWB did all the right things one would have expected him to do under the circumstances, as any other President in his shoes would have done. It's later, when the system settles down and additional plans and responses are being formulated after due study of the situation, that the different personalities and philosophies of the CIC start to diverge from his counterparts in alternate universes. My guess is Gore would have done pretty much the same thing as Bush did, probably for the first year or two; but we never would have gone into Iraq. That was one plan that had nothing to do with 9/11 and it had been in the planning stages way before the twin towers went down.l