If Al Gore was going to be denied the presidency (you don't "lose" when you lead the popular vote by nearly 350,000), it couldn't have happened in a better way than the 5-4 travesty foisted on the nation by the conservative lackeys currently controlling the Supreme Court.
Not only does it forever deny a Bush presidency any shred of legitimacy, never again will we have to hear some right-wing nut blather on about "states' rights."
Like they say in all the other banana republics: Viva El Presidente!
-- Dave Abston
We now have a political system that appears to have been drawn by Escher -- right-wing ruling class family appoints right-wing ruling class elites to run judicial branch which in turn appoints right-wing ruling class family member to run country.
I guess it should come as no surprise that the head of the secret police would be the one to firmly and finally consolidate power in America. If this isn't an oligarchy I don't know what is!
-- Chris O'Connor
Well, it's over. Hopefully the results will energize the Democratic Party and its supporters to take back the House and Senate in 2002 and the White House in 2004. While I will accept George W. Bush as my president, I will use every available moment to work for the defeat of his party and his reelection efforts in 2004.
-- Christopher Tharrington
Now is the time for Gore to do something smart -- ask that George Bush appoint Democrats to the EPA and secretary of interior. He should leverage his majority in the popular vote in a "do no harm" approach to the environment. The environment is bound to take a beating from Bush and Cheney in so many of the unnoticed micropolitical areas, such as appointments and regulatory decisions. Now is the time for Gore to become Nader. Now that there is nothing to lose for Gore, the Earth really is in the balance.
-- Aaron Arthur
Several of your analysts have applauded the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court by saying that the recount mandated by the Florida Supreme Court was unfair. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind. The Florida Legislature wrote the standard: "voter intent." The Bush crowd had persistently accused the Florida court of "changing the rules," of "writing new law." So the Florida judges chose to abide by the Legislature's own standards. And this, say Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court, makes for an unfair recount. Catch-22.
It appears that the U.S. Supreme Court is arguing that 1) the Florida law is unconstitutional, and that 2) all voting must conform to the 14th Amendment. (Why only recounts?) On this basis, almost all of the electoral processes in the USA are illegal, and the election was illegal.
-- Geoff Arnold
I'm getting a little tired of the Supreme Court bashing that seems to be running through the media. What everyone seems to have forgotten in all of this is that if Gore's team had allowed the certification to occur immediately after the first recount (i.e., had not dragged the process out for an extra week!), then we would be sitting at Dec. 6 with a Supreme Court decision telling the Florida Supreme Court to do the recount correctly -- and have time to do the recount correctly. Gore's legal team made a calculated risk and lost. This was never about "counting all the votes," and anybody with half a brain knows that. (And yes, I am a Republican.)
-- Mitch Miller
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