Imagine There's No Heaven: What the big columnists would have written if Gore had won the election

Well, we're in. Over the threshold. Across the finish line. Inside the Oval Office. Basking in the light of day, no longer hostages behind the Green Door. And the constructive intellectualism by the wise and fair scribes of enlightened opinion has begun. The breadth of diversity is remarkable, whether it's a clear-eyed assessment of the Clinton character by Mary McGrory ("I want to think of him at a low point in his life, making poor children feel at home,") or closely reasoned analysis of Bush policy by Bob Herbert ("We are about to embark on a rough ride into the distant past.").

Okay, so it's the same old knee-jerk junk from those guys, surprise, surprise. Before we set our sails to a comfy beam reach, refining our course with tacks toward deregulation and sweet liberty, let us remind ourselves of the universal disposability of their lefty rantings. In or out of power, their columns are less about planning something that might actually work and more often about painting Republicans as a tribe of John Wayne Gacy's with offices in the Capitol building.

Let us therefore imagine what they might have written had the election gone the other way…

E. J. Dionne
Back-alley abortionists, stand down. School "choice" advocates, forget about channeling all that "guv-mint" money you were gonna get into your big, fat investment portfolios. And minorities and women, come up out of the fallout shelter. We (and by we, I mean you) are safe, now that Al Gore has vanquished George W. Bush, a man whose intelligence and sense of fair play reflects a lifetime of privilege, a staggering assumption of entitlement, and naked hostility to the very heart of what makes America, America.

Richard Cohen
George W. Bush would — and did — lie about anything in order to win. Unlike Al Gore's mild overstatements (and even that is an overstatement in itself — I'll personally plead for your forgiveness at my next state dinner, Mr. President-elect), Mr. Bush just made up things out of whole cloth. No, I can't think of any of them just now, but any reasonable person knows they were there. Al Gore, on the other hand, simply stretched rhetoric in order to make the country a better place. So what if he mother-in-law didn't really take that medicine he mentioned? So what if he didn't accompany James Lee Witt to Texas? So what if that Florida classroom wasn't overcrowded? So what if he didn't really establish the Strategic Petroleum Reserves? So what if his mother never sang "Look for the Union Label" to him as a baby? So what if he didn't invent the Internet? So what if his family grew tobacco after tobacco killed his sister? So what if he didn't really discover Love Canal? I think you get what I'm saying.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Having spent many years advising President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I am uniquely qualified to comment on the election of 2000. Being out of any position of influence for more than a generation, my special perspective provides a kind of joyously niggling ignorance of which we do not get enough. History speaks volumes about this kind of event. There are troubling problems. Ideology can be alarming. Did I mention I worked with President Kennedy?

Molly Ivins
Well, golly gee whiz, looks like the shrub is gonna be looking for gainful employment in the great state of Texas after all. Hell's bells, being President of the Yoo-Nited States is far too serious a job to be left to the boy who can chug the most beer and get the most frat boys to vote for him. Shrub-ya ain't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer — never was, and his father ain't, either — and now, thank God, America will be spared the rudderless idiocy that we Texans have suffered through during what we laughingly call the Bush administration. God bless Al Gore.

Frank Rich
Al Gore has saved us, much as I saved Broadway in the 1980s.

Maureen Dowd
"Daddy, what do I do now?" Sonny said.

"Boy, you blew it. Big time. Can't forgive. Can't forget. Huge lead, tossed away. Vision thing, missing. Focus, not there," replied Don George the Elder, Consigliere James Baker at his side, Jeb "Michael Corleone" Bush panting at his elbow. "W., you are now going to take a boat ride, just like Fredo did."

And America is rescued. Al Gore may not be the King of Charisma, but he's the lesser of two evils this year (and kinda cute, I have to admit).

Paul Begala
Oh, I can hear the Republicans screaming from their ivory towers already. "It's not fair!" But heartless men (think Republicans and their cowardly, hateful "families") cannot be heard when their mansions are built on the backs of the poor and their mouths are full of the finest caviar even as children starve in the street (not my street, thank God, but I pass them on my way to work). Relax, America. The system works just fine. Not only did the right man win, so did the moral man, Al Gore. And he will stand up for all Americans, even those from Republican-leaning states that bring America more that its sad share of gay-bashing, hate crimes, racism, recidivism, daylight lynchings, bestiality, child molestation, and the waxing of steps in front of the old folks home.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
As a homemaker and mother, decorating has always been at the top of my list. Making a home for Bill and Chelsea — and whatever friends happened to be around at suppertime! — means a busy day, even for a First Lady! I enjoy going to the market with my friend Marian Wright Edelman (who, like me, occasionally enjoys dabbling in policies to help make American families stronger)…