Mike Gravel - After The Campaigns

After The Campaigns

In June 2008, Gravel endorsed the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative, saying the measure would create a "citizens commission rather than a government commission" with subpoena power against top U.S. officials to "make a true investigation as to what happened" regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Gravel subsequently said that, "Individuals in and out of government may certainly have participated with the obviously known perpetrators of this dastardly act. Suspicions abound over the analysis presented by government. Obviously an act that has triggered three wars, Afghan, Iraqi and the continuing War on Terror, should be extensively investigated which was not done and which the government avoids addressing."

In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters of Sami Al-Arian (who two years earlier had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a charge of conspiracy in helping Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization) when he was caught on tape saying of Al-Arian's prosecutor, "Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is: picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time." Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.

Gravel defended Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after she was chosen as Republican presidential nominee John McCain's running mate in September 2008. He praised Palin's record in standing up to corruption among Alaskan Republicans, thought her national inexperience was an asset not a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor." Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden in the general election. The following year, Gravel said that Palin's politics were "terrible, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she's a very talented person". He predicted that Palin would run for president in 2012 and that "she's going to surprise a lot of people."

From mid-2008 through October 2009 Gravel gave several lectures at South Korean universities about the Korean National Initiative, a Korean adaption of the National Initiative Gravel has proposed in the United States.

In December 2010, Gravel praised WikiLeaks, in the news during the year for the Afghan War documents leak, Iraq War documents leak, and United States diplomatic cables leak, as the "most significant effort to save democracy (which is slowly being eclipsed by the Military Industrial Complex) since the release of the Pentagon Papers". Gravel indicated in December 2010 that he might run for president again and possibly challenge President Obama for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 presidential election, but he did not.