> there was no 9/11 due to smoother handoff between administrations.

It’s an interesting counterfactual but I don’t see the mechanism. The hijackers were mostly in country by inauguration day. While it’s true that they weren’t really operating covertly prior to the attack, I don’t envision a Gore administration that could within months ratchet up FBI/CIA natsec awareness to a level that would change the outcome.

It’s hard for many of us to remember the “before times” now but back then there was a great deal of misplaced faith that foreign attacks on American soil were more or less impossible.