“There are times when “get over it” is kind and friendly advice. If I was talking to a close friend whose child had died a year earlier, for example, I would do what I could to help him get over it, and might even tell him that that’s what he needs to do.”

“The same words, though, would have a very different resonance if I were the one who had killed the child. Then it would not only be hideously inappropriate; it would be positively odious, showing a remarkable moral obtuseness. It might seem like a strained comparison. But I hope it isn’t too impolite to notice that tens of thousands of parents, here and in Iraq, actually have buried their children (casualty counts here, here and here) because the Court, in its wisdom, decided that the man who had been rejected by a margin of half a million Americans, and who might well have lost the election if the Florida vote count had been allowed to proceed, ought to be president – and that man then recklessly plunged the country into an unnecessary and disastrous war.”

Concern for public confidence in the Court is rarely anything more than grandstanding when it appears in a judicial dissent. Furthermore, it is usually a clumsy attempt at a self-fulfilling prophesy (”This majority opinion is the worst ever written. This is not good PR for us.”), very much in the style of partisans tagging each other as “controversial.” Indeed, one can usually discern the partisan slant of anyone discussing Bush v. Gore by the way they describe the vote. I mean, was it 5-4? or 7-2? Let the spinning begin!

I do not accept any double punched ballots being counted, or any ballots with “indentations”. People who lack the ability to do it right disenfranchise themselves. You get to SEE the punch card, my younger brother used them in Atlanta, and checked his to make sure it was right. Of course, he is of reasonable intelligence other than being a blue dog.

As far as the efforts to remove ineligible voters from the rolls, I am fully in favor of such efforts. And I am unaware of any studies showing Dems vs Reps were targeted. (the plural of anecdote is NOT data).Of course, I also approve of picture ID voter registration. I want everyone who is entitled to vote to get to vote EXACTLY one time.

Our Home boy lost the election. Had he not burned his bridges here in Tenn, FL would not even have mattered.

And there is zero evidence that anyone misunderstood the Butterfly ballot. They were claiming that Buchanan, with his views, wouldn’t get the number of votes he did. Well, the number lined up with votes he got in the primary. In other words, it was a made up, phony, baloney scam, designed to give power-mad liberals a talking point to hang on to, while the Dem lawyers tried to steal the election. Gore attempted a coup, another in a long line of bone-headed actions by the inventer of the internet.

That people still bring this up, just shows how deeply they’ve drunk of the Kool-Aid. Anything for power, the Democrat message.

Wait look it up. Or don’t, far be it for me to intrude upon your tightly held and cherished beliefs. Believe whatever you want. Don’t let the facts get in the way.

That would have made clear what few of us realize: The President is not elected by popular vote but by electors picked by each state. I think the above scenario would have had the tremendous effect of initiating a constitutional amendment to make the Presidency subject to popular election just as the original Constitution was amended to provide for direct election of Senators.

That would have made clear what few of us realize: The President is not elected by popular vote but by electors picked by each state. I think the above scenario would have had the tremendous effect of initiating a constitutional amendment to make the Presidency subject to popular election just as the original Constitution was amended to provide for direct election of Senators.

That would have made clear what few of us realize: The President is not elected by popular vote but by electors picked by each state. I think the above scenario would have had the tremendous effect of initiating a constitutional amendment to make the Presidency subject to popular election just as the original Constitution was amended to provide for direct election of Senators.

“Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”

The biggest point of a supreme court is to get the law of the land correct. Is there so little business in the court system these days that our Supreme Court feels free to issue what Justice Owen Roberts called “restricted railroad tickets, good for this day and place only.” ? So it seems. Another telling point against the opinion are its first two words:

Per curiam

Here’s a case that is deciding who is to be the President of the United States. This is not a peewee case. Yet no Justice wanted to sign the majority opinion, a remarkable departure from big case practice. What “per curiam” tells me is that no Justice wanted to take the heat for the opinion, and saw no credit issuing from it. So, duck! Bah.

What’s the result? Since BUSH, there have been three national elections, including a presidential one. The opinion has not been cited, save, as you point out, once when it was promptly tossed out on appeal. Result: the body that should take the biggest interest in accurate, precise elections, Congress, ignores the issue. Let the courts decide, and take the heat seems to be the attitude. To be sure, Congress did pass laws that were supposed to help, but all they did was ensure that Diebold would get a black eye, to the point of selling its voting machine division. In any close election, suspicion flames forth, followed by lawsuits. The Court would have been better served by invoking the “political question” doctrine, and heaving the case back to Florida. I acknowledge that this likely would have put Gore in the White House, and from what I’ve read of the newspaper “recounts” would likely have gotten the wrong result. But it would have served a better purpose than the incompetent aggrandizement that characterizes the federal courts today. The lack of trust and faith in federal elections should give all nine prima donnas pause—but won’t.

Sincerely yours,

Gregory Koster

(not of CUNY)

The US Supremes didn’t “intervene.” The Florida court intervened, at Al Gore’s request.

“Essentially decide”? When the margin of difference is smaller than the margin of error, someone’s going to decide. Whoever loses can cry “we were robbed!” It was the Florida politicians, not the US Supremes, who handed it to Bush.

But really, it’s been overtaken by events. Federal election law has been updated to streamline and clarify the eelction process, punchmark ballots are out of fashion, and people know better than to believe bloviating TV journalists who declare the election over before the polls close. The media s-canned the Voter News Service in 2002 so they can’t even make early exit poll predictions like in 2000. Hopefully the peculiar circumstances that made Gore v Bush possible in the first place will never re-occur.

As always, the ‘rules’ either only apply to one side, or they are whatever it takes to get the result the Left wants.

(And I’m leaving out the early call for Gore in FL *before* the polls had closed in the Panhandle.)

Not that these losers will ever MoveOn.

Supremes gave the Florida supreme court two chances. The first time it was an unsigned but presumably unanimous smackdown to go back and do it the right way.

The second time it was a 7-2 decision that Florida’s idiots violated the Constitution a second time.

Gore was up against a time constraint and his legal team handled things poorly. Gore never argued to recount the entire state, he just cherry-picked. Had he argued to recount the entire state, then no Article II or 14th Amendment violations.

The Supremes weren’t under any obligation to apply a specific remedy (although admittedly something specific might have helped).

Gore ran out of time and finally bowed out.

Arguing what happened in 1999 or at any time prior to election day is irrelevant. If you choose to do so, I could argue that Gore couldn’t carry the state in which both he and his father served as US Senators. Tennessee had a better look at Gore than anyone and decided, “Thanks, but we’ll take the guy with the drawl.”

Scalia is right. Give it up, move on.

Regardless, we should all be thankful for the outcome. Have you seen algore recently? The man is delusional and most likely clinically insane.

But my impression of the case was always that it seemed like the political doctrine question or some other sort of avoidance should have been employed. There was scant legal guidance available, the Court was plagued with possible conflicts of interest, and there was essentially no decision that could have been reached without about half of the U.S. population insisting it was illegitimate. The Court had no way to win, there.

Except, if the Court had found it was a political question and not addressed it, does anyone know what would have happened? Would it just have left the Florida SC’s decision standing?

It is true that Bush may have won if Al Gore had received the relief he was seeking (a recount in particular counties). However, there was virtually no support on the Court for that result. The four dissenting justices wanted to remand the case to the Florida Supreme Court to order a statewide recount according to uniform rules. Had that result occurred — rather than the county-specific recount that Gore was seeking — then Al Gore almost certainly would have won.

have lost. A number of newspapers in the United States counted votes from various states and also concluded that Al Gore should have been declared the new president. Anyone interested in the truth can find many accounts on google.