Bush Wins.

Let the record show that I did not find anything that I disagreed with in the last post!

Same here

Yesturday, at mtv.com, a chat was held with Rage Against the Machine's Guirarist Tom Morello. This question was asked, and I thought the answer given by Tom was very interesting.

Boscodaman:Tom, given the state of the presidential election today, what do you think it says about politics here in america, should we adobt a more liberal voting system like they have in Australia, where you rate all candidates, or can vote for none of the above?

MTV_Tom_Morello:I think the problem with American democracy has nothing to do with disagreements over hanging Chads in the Florida legislature... the problem is that both of the major parties are owned and controlled by corporate money...
It is no suprise that 50% of all eligible votes don't even bother to vote on election day because they believe that no matter who wins they will not be represented. There's a saying that goes "If voting made any difference, they'd make it illegal," and I fear that might be true. No matter who wins this current election, be it Bush or Gore, they will win with only 25% of the popular vote.. that's half of the people who don't vote..and the other half have settled for the other candidate. That means the next President of the US, like Clinton and Bush and Reagan before him, will be in office despite the fact that 75% of Americans don't want him there.

And me, too.

hey! Gil & i agree on something! this is a cause for rejoicing!

aryne *

And with that the little hobbit broke out a big jug of hard cider and passed it around!

AHEM! I rather expect that we will fix our quaint voting systems. No reason why we can't get it right.

The voter registration here has been swelled dramatically by Clinton era legislation. Anyone who gets a drivers licence or who gets welfare is automatically registered.

A lot of clods out there are dullards or self-absorbed or otherwise unwilling to take the time or make the effort to vote. Good! I wouldn't trust their judgement.

But creating large voter registration pools, with the foreknowledge that many will never vote, makes vote fraud possible. Standard Democratic Party strategy.

That vote was purchased with life and limb. This is why a lot of us in the Southfarthing were upset with the attempted fraud in South Florida.

I can't argue with the point that special interests essentially own the candidates on their issues. This was anticipated by the Founders, who decided that only Tyranny could prevent it. Therefore, in America, we pit interest group against interest group and maintain relative peace and prosperity through gridlocks, deadlocks, and only the most gradual changes.

Unfortunately, balances of power eventually buckle, like tectonic plates. When they give, get ready for a shakedown! Jefferson thought we would have to have a revolution every generation. The system is stronger than that, but we are doomed by our Constitution to ride out such quakes and tremors on an almost cyclical basis. Not very tranquil but, no one has devised a better system yet.

Say! Isn't it about time that HOBBIT returned this thread back to it's original name?

BUSH WINS!!!!!!!!!!!

(Of course, if you want to wait until December 18th, that's justifiable.)

I'll except it now. I don't really like that he one, but as both Bush and Gore said, we now must unite as one nation. If we want to get this country to keep working, we have to unite, unwillingly if necessary.

Yes, it's a sad day when our Supreme Court becomes political and splits 5-4 along party lines to essentially choose the makeup of their court. It wasn't even party lines, the Court is 7-2 Republican but luckily two of those GOP nominees turned out to be liberals (Stevens, Souter).

The five conservatives knew that by ruling for Bush, they could guarantee more conservatives on the court. Now Rehnquist and his buddies can retire in peace. That clearly is immoral, if not unconstitutional. And Scalia and Thomas had major conflicts of interest by having strong family ties to the Bushes.

Bush got fewer votes. He needed his brother, the Republican secretary of state in Florida, his father's old cronies (Baker, et al), the Republican Supreme Court, and the threat of the Republican Florida Legislature to bully his way to victory.

Quite a lot to go over here. Ben raised virtually every point that the Democratic Party would have us believe.

Yes, it's a sad day when our Supreme Court becomes political and splits 5-4 along party lines to essentially choose the makeup of their court.
Not necessarily. First of all SEVEN Justices ruled the recount unconstitutional. Two of these thought it should be tried again with a constitutional counting methodology. Five thought that such a recount could not possibly be done in a Constitutional fashion, allowing for DUE PROCESS as well as EQUAL PROTECTION. We found ourselves smack up against the Constitutional deadline of December 12th. But that's Gore's own fault. (more on this later)


It wasn't even party lines, the Court is 7-2 Republican but luckily two of those GOP nominees turned out to be liberals (Stevens, Souter).
It was certainly a split along ideological lines. Had the court been one justice more liberal, I would be saying exactly the same thing Ben is, I'm sure.


The five conservatives knew that by ruling for Bush, they could guarantee more conservatives on the court. Now Rehnquist and his buddies can retire in peace. That clearly is immoral, if not unconstitutional.
They certainly had to be aware of the potential ideological ramifications. Nevertheless, that was just a sweet bonus. They still ruled correctly. (IMHO)


And Scalia and Thomas had major conflicts of interest by having strong family ties to the Bushes.
And Bryer actually said "...if WE win..." and then caught himself in the process. That was pretty blatant. Look, everyone of these justices has extensive ties to the Political Class. Kennedy is buddies with Tribe, for example. A lot of other close ties can be found for each of these guys. It's always been this way. (Keep in mind that the Founders understood this. Unlike virtually every other scheme of Government, ours anticipates and indeed relys upon Human Nature being what it is.)


Bush got fewer votes.
Across the nation, he has fewer Certified votes. If you want to talk about the potential for uncertified votes, you're off in the realm of academic purity. Every election has imperfections and irregularities. If all illegal immigrants, convicts, dead Democrats, etc. were not allowed to vote, then perhaps Bush actually won the popular vote!


He needed his brother,
...who recused himself...


the Republican secretary of state in Florida,
...a partisan lady who was co-chair of the Florida Bush campaign, but whose ruling were nonetheless upheld by both Democrat and Republican Courts.


his father's old cronies (Baker, et al),
...Ronald Reagan's old cronies, Gerald Ford's old cronies, Bob Dole's old cronies, basically the best players on the team. That's why Gore hired David "Kill Microsoft" Boies on his side. One of Clinton's old cronies. And how about "Boss" Daley's son...


the Republican Supreme Court,
...daring to stop the unconstitutional (illegal) recount though they knew their reputations would be trashed, as has everyone else's that dared cross Clinton-Gore...

and the threat of the Republican Florida Legislature to bully his way to victory.
...the threat of obeying their Constitutional mandate.


Gore might MIGHT have actually won had he contested the election fairly. As the Supreme Court ruling demonstrates, Gore's recount was unconstitutional and there was no time to do the work needed to do the count in a constitutional fashion.

If Gore had called Bush's bluff, he would have had a chance.

Here's the funny thing:

Gore said he wanted the entire state counted. He instructed his lawyers to insist only on the heaviest Democratic counties.

Bush said he didn't want any recount at all. But his lawyers stipulated IN COURT AT EVERY LEVEL that such a recount, if it were to occur, would have to count every vote and do so with the same standard in like counties.

Gore should have allowed Katherine Harris to certify the vote on schedule and then IN COURT INSTEAD OF JUST ON TV demand that the entire state be recounted fairly according to existing standards.

If a court had so ordered, it would have passed constitutional muster, and given Gore the "full, fair, and accurate count" he said he wanted.

And he MIGHT have won.

Instead, he took Gangster Daley's advice and attempted a tried and untrue method used by Democrats for the last 25 years to overturn close elections in punch card counties. At every step of the way, they used changing standards and faulty statistics to inflate the recounts in selected areas.

Gore is hoist on his own petard, as the saying goes.


Having said all of that, Gore gave one hell of a good speech the other night. If he had campaigned like that, he would have won in a landslide. It went a long way toward convincing me that Gore is not such a villain.

He was just surrounded by them.

I think I speak for us all that we need a democratic equivelent of Gil.

Hurrah for logic! (on any side )

ok Gil, everything you said was just wrong.

We found ourselves smack up against the Constitutional deadline of December 12th.
But that's Gore's own fault. (more on this later)

You are babbling again...........The REPUBLICANS were the only ones who delayed the counting. Harris, the circuit court judge, and then the U.S. rebublican court. More importantly, the mod of reublican protesters outside miami-dade.

Across the nation, he has fewer Certified votes. If you want to talk about the
potential for uncertified votes, you're off in the realm of academic purity. Every
election has imperfections and irregularities. If all illegal immigrants, convicts, dead
Democrats, etc. were not allowed to vote, then perhaps Bush actually won the
popular vote!

Ok, if you want to talk about couinting all the votes, then WHY don't you think that COUNTING all the voted in Florida is fair? hmm let me think about that...because if there was a recount, itt would show Gore on top!! "dead people" from both dies voted.....

I ain't wrong neither! (though I might be guilty of babbling...)

Gore shouldn't have bothered with the first recounts in the protest period, which should not have been counted because they were political and not for any legal reason.

Well, actually, if they had finished on time, like Volusia County, they would have been counted. Gore delayed asking for the recount until the 72 hours were almost up, so that Bush would have little time to respond. He ate up three days all by himself.

This was because he followed Gangster Daley's advice on how to fix an election.

Then, Gore went to the Supreme Court to overturn the Circuit Court (Democrat) ruling that Katharine Harris was right to enforce the statutory deadline. If he had not done that, AS THE REPUBLICAN LAWYERS POINTED OUT, the election would have been certified ON TIME.

Superlawyer Boies had to work with what he was given by this time and did the best he could. They needed time to complete the illegal recounts and sew up a victory.

This was a critical delay, since the contest period, though a steeper legal climb, was a straighter path. If the legal course had followed Gore's rhetoric, he might have won. But the Florida Supreme Court decided to write new law (a job reserved to the Legislature) and extend the Protest period and shorten the Contest period.

They should have left it alone.

Then Gore would have had 18 days more to get the votes counted when he contested the certification.

He blew it because he was afraid of the publicity of Bush being certified the winner according to statutory deadline.

If he had played it by the book, and not delayed it himself, he might have won!





I DO think that counting all of the votes is fair! But you can't count dimples as votes and you've got to count ALL the votes. Gore resisted this at every stage of the legal wrangling! HE ONLY WANTED A FEW COUNTIES COUNTED AND ONLY SOME OF THE VOTES IN MIAMI-DADE!!!!!!

If Gore wanted every vote counted, he shouldn't have fought it. But he wasn't sure he'd win if he did that (as his spinners told the Washington Post yesterday) so he fought "a full, fair, and accurate count" every step of the way.

If Gore truly did get more votes in Florida, he failed to prove it because he was more interested in winning by any means rather than in finding the truth.

Bill Bradley warned us about that.

Gore doesn't deserve to be President. It was his to lose, and lose it he did. His own state voted against him.




Next time, if Gore kicks the spin-meisters out the door and acts like a man and goes with his heart, he could win big.




Now be a good sport and change the name of this thread back to BUSH WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wrong again but i will change it...whatever, but Bush did win, even if unfairly.

Gore doesn't deserve to win

Neither does Bush. They're both complete idiots. If McCain won the primaries, we wouldn't be in this deadlock right now. He was capable of being a good president. Bush thinks just cuz his dad was prez, he could be prez, and Gore thinks just cuz he worked next to the president for eight years, that he can be prez. Neither of them are actually qualified in my mind.

I notice that the exclamation points were deleted!

Ah, well. We'll take what we can get, I suppose. I guess this is what they mean by "bipartisanship!"

Point of fact, I have to agree, and as I posted long long ago, this election should have been entitled "WHEN MEDIOCRITIES COLLIDE."

Ho hum.

Funny how folks (including me) can get so worked up over a couple of empty-suits mouthing the words the spinmeisters test positive in focus groups.

No wonder the nation is virtually tied!

It's hard to choose when the choices ain't much to brag about.

Still, I expect G.W. Bush to exceed expectations.

He'll exceed expactations cuz his cabinet will end up running the country. I'm not too familiar with most of those people, but do you guys think he made some good choices? I guess all we can hope for is that he did, or else we're in trouble.

He mostly picked his Texan buddies

gdl96 raises a great issue! I hope you young folk continue to monitor the news! It's vitally important that you stay abreast of things!

Colin Powell: Mr. Credibility. This guy would have been President if he had run for EITHER party. He is not considered an Uncle Tom because he doesn't cross the line the Left has drawn with Abortion and Affirmative Action. (I'm soft on Affirmative Action, by the way!) As Secretary of State, he will get a lot of face time and can be expected to achieve substantial results. The Right criticizes his Dovish posture during the Gulf War, but this will be great in a diplomat.

Condoleezza Rice This lady is absolutely brilliant! She, too, is soft on affirmative action, but since this has nothing to do with National Security, the Right has nothing to grouse about. The Far-Right-Grassy-Knoll Crowd doesn't like that she's a member of the CFR, but if you don't know what that means, then don't worry about it.

Mr. Gonzales Forgot his first name, but this Hispanic Texax Supreme Court Justice is a top notch legal mind and will serve well as White House Counsel.




So far, I'm happy with these cabinet level picks. Obviously, the timing was gimmicked to show three minority picks, but these are not low level positions. These are arguably the most important positions in the Bush Administration.

A good boss (and when you've worked a while, or bossed a while, you'll understand this very well) hires the best people and turns them loose. (He really turns them loose if they fail!)

G.W.Bush won't get in their way.

Something to keep in mind is that it is impossible to do a good job of micromanagement. In fact, each of these Cabinet picks will be farming out the work to executives who in turn answer to them! When you're talking about the management of a Superpower, you're talking about a management chore indeed!

As Washington himself said, the most important thing about a President is his character.

I like Bush so far.