Kinsley still finds it "shocking that democracy was so openly subverted"

[swag]

Michael Kinsley discusses some books on American Democracy in today's New York Times Book Review. One of the more interesting of many interesting passages is this one on the stolen election of 2000:

. . .

It is considered tiresome to complain that the White House was stolen in 2000. In fact, the ultimate triumph of the George W. Bush forces in the 2000 dispute has been to stamp any discussion of that episode as bad sportsmanship and therefore, in a way, undemocratic itself. You lost fair and square: “Get over it,” as Justice Scalia advised.

Call me bitter: I am not over it and don’t want to be over it. I still find it shocking that democracy was so openly subverted, and even more shocking that so few others seem to share my shock. “Stolen”? That depends, as the man said, on what you mean by that word. Here is what I mean. First, a clear majority of those who voted in Florida intended to vote for Gore and walked out of the voting booth (or away from the mailbox) sincerely believing that they had done so. Vindicating the assumptions of those who did vote about whom they voted for (a standard first suggested, as far as I know, by Jacob Weisberg of Slate) seems about the least you can demand of a voting system, and Florida failed this test.

Second, at every stage, Republican government officials thwarted all attempts to let democracy work in the minimal sense of the previous paragraph. Repeatedly, they interpreted the “discretion” that any public official must have as a license to produce the result they wanted, rather than as creating any obligation to do what is right. The Florida recount debate was a festival of intellectual dishonesty. On a whole series of technical issues (those butterfly ballots mispunched by the confused old ladies of Palm Beach, or military absentee ballots mailed after the deadline) there were plausible arguments on both sides. And these arguments had no obvious ideological cast. There is no natural conservative or liberal position on the dilemma of the dangling chad. So it is remarkable — amusing, depressing, not surprising I guess — how quickly and passionately Democrats and Republicans staked out their respective cui bono positions. But Republicans controlled the state and federal governments, so they got their way.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore was surprising. Shocking, in fact. Probably the most fatuous — i.e., knowingly stupid — Supreme Court decision in history. The justices of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), who upheld racial segregation, could at least plead historical blinders. The majority justices of Bush v. Gore have no such excuse. Both as a raw assertion of judicial power and as a more specific interpretation of the 14th Amendment, it was not merely wrong, but spectacularly wrong in precisely the ways that conservative justices like Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas had been objecting to for years. The justices invented a nonsensical equal-protection “right” — essentially, the right to an equal risk of having your vote miscounted — and held that any attempt to correct mistakes through a recount was unfair to those who didn’t get recounted. And then they declared this alleged right to be a one-time-only offer, like a grocery-store coupon. As Adam Cohen pointed out recently on the New York Times editorial page, the coupon has indeed expired. Bush v. Gore is rarely cited or applied in other situations.

. . .

[grytpype]

1. When people say Rove is a genius, I roll my eyes.

Because he lost the 2000 election. He lost the popular vote. He won in the EC only because the Palm Beach ballot screwup made it close enough to steal, which James Baker did with the help of some friendly Supreme Court justices. But you can't say Rove won the 2000 election in any way.

[Raster]

18. The final word on the legitimacy of Selection 2000 was by the news

consortium that discovered ANY WAY ALL THE VOTES WERE FAIRLY COUNTED, GORE WON. Period. And when you factor in all the stolen votes, lost votes, disqualified votes and the effects of voter suppression by a number of sleazy tactics, it becomes apparent that Gore won by quite a nice margin.

kkkarl rove isn't a genius. He's just an above-average intellect unprincipled sleaze. kkkarl is a charter member of the Lee Atwater School of Dirty tricks, which still sets the standard for bottom-of-the-barrel tactics. The BFEE didn't hire kkkarl because he was a genius, they hired him because he was a political sociopath with no sense of right and wrong, and no qualms about doing whatever it took to get his man elected.

[bobbieinok]

26. 9-11 occurred days before consortium report was due

At first, they claimed 9-11 should stop the report.

[katty]

25. yeah, like when people say "Hitler" was a genius(yea, so what?!)

[aquart]

2. It wasn't stupidity, it was deliberate treason.

May the evil they do come back to them, from every place it has gone, from every one it has harmed.

[texpatriot2004]

8. Oh, that's good...karma, karma, karma nm

[cassiepriam]

17. Amen. nt

[Mike Nelson]

3. I miss Kinsley...

...take away Ann Coulter and bring Kinsley back.

[JHB]

6. But that's always been part of the problem...

...treating Kinsley as if he were the opposite number of Coulter, or more specifically, Buchanan.

[Mike Nelson]

9. You make a good point...

Kinsley is nothing like Coulter. Moreover, I'm tired of how the so-called "liberal" media pits a right wing idiot against a real live professional journalist. Like CSPAN builds up rags like the Washington Times and American Spectator...

[Skittles]

19. OMG I LOVE THAT GUY

I remember him on crossfire - so young and he LOOKED so wide-eyed naive but he would fire some FATAL veral comebacks :thumbsup:

[enough]

4. I have always felt that the media acting as if this event was anything other than

a dire constitutional crisis was the single most important factor in enabling the Bush regime and bringing us to where we are today.

The media's acquiescence was the instrument of mass hypnosis that seemed to overcome the country at that point. The stage was set even before 9-11.

[texpatriot2004]

5. I agree 100% and I AM NOT GOING TO "GET OVER IT" either

EVER!

[Eric J in MN]

7. Me neither.

A cartoon I directed:
http://www.moveleft.com/uncle_sam_on_the_river_display.html

[xchrom]

10. everything we are about today is because of the stolen 00 election.

[Land Shark]

11. Bush v Gore makes a comeback via Help America Vote Act

Watch it come into play now, again.

[depakid]

12. Every one of those "justices" needs to be impeached

Not that the Dems would have the guts to do that- but it's without question the right thing to do.

[nashville_brook]

13. i will never "get over it" -- i'll never forget...

i was working with a particularly evil/stupid marketing consultant on a video project, so he was at the house waaaaaay too much during the "recount" months. the night Gore conceded he was f'n there. it felt so invasive, like your boss intruding on the birth of a child.

i was weeping silently feeling something akin to "Frodo Lost," when he starts flapping his pie-hole... "finally we'll be making some REAL money. this is going to be GREAT for 'us'." our client was a crooked hospital investor, i.e. he bought small community hospitals, bled them dry, and ran.

soon after Boosh took office the consultancy moved into upscale digs downtown where they kept a TV on tuned to Fox-News. the last straw for me came one day after a particularly ridiculous Ari Fleisher press conf and my boss cornered me for my thoughts on Ari's performance. i said he reminded me of a drunk frat boy trying to 'splain a date rape episode as the woman's fault.

the client filed for bankruptcy in 2004 after two of "his" hospitals in Portland OR filed class-action lawsuits.

i've been hopeful for justice ever since.

[teryang]

14. RFK, jr., documents election discrepancies 2000,2002,2006

...both articles are posted at www.globalresearch.ca

Will The Next Election Be Hacked?


by Robert F. Kennedy Jr

November 3, 2006
Rollingstone.com


The voting-machine companies bear heavy blame for the 2000 presidential-election disaster. Fox News' fateful decision to call Florida for Bush - followed minutes later by CBS and NBC - came after electronic machines in Volusia County erroneously subtracted more than 16,000 votes from Al Gore's total. Later, after an internal investigation, CBS described the mistake as "critical" in the network's decision. Seeing what was an apparent spike for Bush, Gore conceded the election - then reversed his decision after a campaign staffer investigated and discovered that Gore was actually ahead in Volusia by 13,000 votes...

The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff...,


Ney also made sure that Diebold and other companies would not be required to equip their machines with printers to provide paper records that could be verified by voters...

(in 2004) Electronic voting machines also caused widespread problems in Florida, where Bush bested Kerry by 381,000 votes. When statistical experts from the University of California examined the state's official tally, they discovered a disturbing pattern: "The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004." The three counties with the most discrepancies - Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade - were also the most heavily Democratic. Electronic voting machines, the report concluded, may have improperly awarded as many as 260,000 votes to Bush. "No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Michael Hout, a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Florida, an astonishing new law actually makes it illegal to count paper ballots by hand after they've already been tallied by machine.

Much more...

Incidentally, the Voter News Consortium of the major news media exit polling was inexplicably rendered inoperative by a defense contractor Battelle Memorial Institute in the 2002 midterm elections.

[Senator]

15. Stolen Election 2000 Should be the First Article of Impeachment

That was the watershed. That's when the DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy willfully implemented a government in direct contradiction to the known will of the electorate.

Thus violating the only moral principle on which this once-great nation was founded.

Bush/Cheney can be first prosecuted. But the Felonious Five must follow (yes, even posthumously). Then prosecutions for those who violated the law in the process. Then censures for ALL (DC Dems included) who were derelict in their duty to object. All this goes for 2004 as well.

Instead of "get over it" we need to "get right with it."

There's nothing to stop any of this. Including reversing any law or lifetime appointment made by this never-elected, never-legitimate regime.

No it is not "time wasted," rather it is "ammends being made." To ourselves, our forefathers, the world community, and most importantly our children.

We have a National Soul to Redeem. There is NOTHING more important.

No, not any issues wish list, not even a terrorist threat. Nothing.

Anything less is just rationalization for inaction -- a request to go forward in dishonesty -- to "stay the course."

Literally just more of the same ongoing complicity.

--

[cui bono]

21. Can we do something to the media as well?

They played such a large role, and they won't turn over their exit polling data to Conyers.

[Senator]

22. They'll turn stuff over to "Chairman Conyers"

(knock the bushkid's head)

But we're already "doing something" to the euphemedia. We're replacing them ourselves.

We can now publicly argue (on blogs) with their rubbish in real time. And it's making a difference.

I tell everyone I know that the DU Greatest page is the most efficient news filter available. Because it's absolutely true. You've got a huge pool of interested people coming to a consensus on what they think is important for their community to know. Sure, it's heavily "political" but not to the exclusion of other stories/topics.

A vastly improved media will follow if we can "return to a reality-based community."

That requires what I wrote above. That's our core mission.

--

[DeepModem Mom]

16. K&R

[FernBell]

20. kick

[bobbie]

23. It was even more openly subverted in 1963 when our president was executed

on the streets of Dallas. That was a coup bigger'n hell. It shared the motive of the 2000 coup--to make war profiteers richer. Things haven't changed in over 40 years.

And the media covered it up in 1963 just like in 2000.

I take it that history isn't Michael Kinsley's strong suit. :evilgrin:

[tom_paine]

24. then Kinsley hasn't been paying close enough attention...

...if he can still be shocked.

These last six years have been an education ine 1930s Germany and how all lawlessness happens. How ruthless amibiton applied without scruple can destroy the greatest nation in human history...the old USA.