Reply #19: Thanks.

[Thoreau-Ly]

Homeland Security is part of the Big Sham, of course.

Couple of links for you, if you like:

It all seemed too preposterous.

Sure, friends and relatives predicted that the case would eventually land in their laps, but that was ignorant, naïve talk — typical of people without sophisticated legal backgrounds.

A majority of the justices were conservatives, but they weren't partisan; mindful of the Court's fragile authority, the justices had always steered clear of messy political spats.

Moreover, the very jurists who'd normally side with Bush were the ones most solicitous of states' rights, most deferential to state courts, most devoted to the Constitution's "original intent" — and the Founding Fathers had specifically provided that the Congress, not the judiciary, would resolve close elections.

To top it off, the Court rarely took cases before they were ripe, and the political process in Florida was still unfolding.

"It was just inconceivable to us that the Court would want to lose its credibility in such a patently political way," one of the clerks recalls. "That would be the end of the Court."

Vanity Fair: The Path to Florida

In the summer of 2003, Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.) was interviewed by Alexandra Pelosi at a barbecue on the White House lawn for her HBO documentary Diary of a Political Tourist. “It’s already over. The election’s over. We won,” King exulted more than a year before the election. When asked by Pelosi—the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—how he knew that Bush would win, he answered, “It’s all over but the counting. And we’ll take care of the counting.”

Mark Crispin Miller: None Dare Call It Stolen

Take care. Thank your boyfriend for working in the political process, too, please.