Declaring it "sleazy and despicable," Al Gore yesterday attacked Vice President Dick Cheney's remark that "the wrong choice" by voters could result in another terrorist attack.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette During a speech Downtown, former Vice President Al Gore sharply criticized Vice President Cheney for saying America is at risk of another terrorist attack unless the Bush-Cheney team is re-elected. Click photo for larger image.

The former vice president, appearing at a rally at the headquarters of the United Steelworkers of America in Downtown Pittsburgh, accused Cheney and President Bush of using fear to promote their re-election bid because they have what he called a "failed record" on the economy, health care and the war in Iraq.

Gore said Bush has turned to "the ugliest page in the Republican playbook" by saying his re-election was necessary to keep terrorism at bay.

"They're not even trying to convince you to vote for George Bush. Their only hope is to try and make you too afraid to vote for [Democratic candidate] John Kerry. It's the lowest sort of politics imaginable," Gore said.

"That's not worthy of a major candidate, let alone an incumbent president. It is insulting to voters to claim that."

Cheney told supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday that, if Kerry were elected, the United States risked falling back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set" that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Cheney was talking about differences in how Bush and Kerry would approach the war on terror.

Gore also criticized the president's reasons for the war on Iraq, the net loss of jobs nationwide, and what he termed deceptive tax cuts.

"Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11," Gore said. "When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt didn't attack Indonesia -- he attacked Japan."

Gore frequently referred to Cheney as "Halliburton." Cheney was once chief executive of the Halliburton Co., the nation's largest military- and oil-services company. The company has billions of dollars in defense contracts for Iraq. The Pentagon has accused Halliburton of overcharging the Department of Defense for some of its services.

The tax cuts described by the Bush administration as an aid to the middle class, Gore said, are really a "cattle trough" with an invitation for the president's cronies to eat well.

"He disguises everything with the intent to deceive people," Gore said.

Flanked by politicians and USWA executives, the former vice president turned to history to talk about the net loss of jobs nationally during the Bush administration.

"Every president -- you can even think Nixon, Reagan and the first Bush -- since Hoover has had at least a positive column [of job growth]. It's natural growth. It takes real work to counter that natural growth."

The U.S. Labor Department reported last week that the economy had generated 144,000 jobs in August, more than in the previous two months, but the economy has suffered a net loss of some 900,000 jobs since Bush took office in 2001.

Gore also noted the recent increase in Medicare premiums and the fact that federal investigators have determined the former chief of the agency illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and should repay some salary.

Medicare premiums last week were increased by $11.60 a month to $78.20, the largest premium increase in dollars in the federal program's history, he added.

Gore called it another example of the administration taking money from average families to give to the wealthy.

This week, investigators with the Government Accountability Office said the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months of his salary to the government.

The White House hasn't commented, but a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said Scully was within his legal authority.

Gore reminded the crowd that Pennsylvania is one of the states still up for grabs in the election and told the steelworkers to get busy.