I’m still enough of an optimist to say that Dubya lacks Reagan’s charisma to pull this off. Add to that the lingering shadow of the Florida election hijack, and I daresay Bush is in for rougher times ahead.
(Of course, I’ll be doing my part to help. 
We have to get a duly-elected President back in the White House as soon as possible…)
‘Cept it was. The Supreme Court was not authorized by the Constitution to hear that case. What’s more, those five justices knew it. Those justices support states’ rights on every issue except when it came to putting a Bush into office. They ignored the Constitution and they ignored the laws they made themselves. There is no way to explain that decision expect as a deliberate violation of constitutional forms in order to install Bush into power.
So you’re providing evidence that the corporate media was not honest. I’m surprised you haven’t realized this already. Try witnessing a news story like this and compare it to what they report, and you’ll see what I mean.
Funny, they don’t even contradict the independent reports. One ignores the question, and the other one gives a vague answer. A article in the Village Voice gives the 20,000 figure, andhere is another source. I’m sure there are others. Here is an interesting article on the counter-inauguration protests, though it doesn’t give an estimate of the number of protesters.
Are you guys looking for the Straight Dope or what the corporate media feeds you?
I don’t have time for this right now, so it looks like someone else will get the last word.
Thanks for the links, Tatjana.
Question, though–
If I can’t trust the corporate media, why can I trust FAIR? Or The 'Voice? Or you?
Why?
As opposed to what the Florida SC did… ::scoff::
I am? Where?
Because the manner in which the states choose their electors is left up to the states by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to decide this.
As opposed to what the Florida SC did… ::scoff::
[/quote]
Precisely. Do you homework before you scoff.
tj
That’s funny, I remember reading about voters who were thrown off the voter rolls because there name was almost that of a felon (though those voters were not felons), and not alerted about this before election day. That would almost fit that definition of disenfranchised up there.
Flawed Vote Cleansing
Some had been convicted of a misdemeanor and not a felony, others were felons who had had their rights restored and others were simply cases of mistaken identity.
An additional 279 were not close matches with names on the county’s own voter rolls and were not notified. Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.
[…]
Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named “Christine” was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a “Christopher” with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.
[/quote]
CBS News killed this story supposedly because the Governor of Florida (I forget his name) disagreed with the account.
Also The Nation also wrote a long article about this.
Thanks for everyone’s elucidating comments. As I suspected from what I heard and read in the international media, there appears to be evidence of voter disenfranchisement. The controversial items mentioned by people in this thread made it all the way to the other side of the planet where I live, although I was not able to give detailed accounts of them. The big question is why is nothing being done about this farce?
Is it time for Cecil to do a Straight Dope column on this mess, or is the situation so convoluted that even he will not touch it? 
Tejota…
Which is why the Supreme Court didn’t choose the electors. They decided which of the votes should count and whether or not the recounts should proceed according to the law. They interpreted the law.
Do YOUR homework, pal. Revisionist history won’t work so soon after the fact.
Sterling…
And I read about a two-headed Elvis clone. Even if the stories are accurate, however, they remain unfortunate isolated incidents (thankfully), and that isn’t the mass-disenfranchisement that’s often ballyhooed about.
But how many incidents documented on paper does it take before we call it “mass” disenfranchisement? 100? 200? 3,000? Disenfranchisement is never acceptable, especially in such a close and suspicious election. There seem to be too many of these allegations (and in some cases supporting evidence) for this to go down in history as a regular and valid election. Simply denying or downplaying all the charges is not going to solve the problem, unless you view Bush under attack as the problem.
Regarding the interpretation of the law, that sounds like splitting hairs. I do not believe that the Supreme Court acted in accordance with the law and the best interests of voters when they made their decision, or they would have investigated the matter properly. They couldn’t order a lengthy but much-needed recount because the tension and other detrimental (including economic) effects of this drawn-out election were mounting by the day. In my opinion the Supreme Court acted in the best short-term interests of the nation (by putting an end to the election), but not of the voters.
Except it wasn’t theirs to interpret. State, not federal, law controls the selection of electors. To rationalize overturning it, Kennedy et al. had to invent a new Constitutional principle, and then admit it would apply to that case only.
Quite so.
You’ve already been provided with evidence that it was a systematic effort by the Jeb Bush administration, not “unfortunate isolated incidents”. Where is your cutoff between “isolated” and “mass”, and do you feel right about accepting either one?
Abe, sorry, pal, gotta disagree about the Supreme Court acting in the short-term interests of the nation (and how do you differentiate between the “interests of the nation” and “the interests of the voters”?). If the important thing were to get the selections of our leaders over with quickly, we wouldn’t need to even bother with elections. The principles of both democracy and republicanism require just a little more than that, though.
If you haven’t seen this humerous (yet insightful) article explaining the Bush v. Gore decision, you need to check it out. A Simple Q&A that Every American Should Read
Elvis, I’m sorry if I upset you. I take back the suggestion that you read both sides of the issue.
Seriously, I remember reading that 1964 Republican Convention delegates were SF Chronicle or Examiner. In those days, it was conservatives who favored censorship and limiting one’s knowledge. Today, it’s the liberals. That’s one reason I’m no longer a liberal.
I agree with you completely. But I support that the best short-term interests of the nation are not exactly the same thing as the best (long- and short-term) interests of the voters. Had the interests of the voters been heeded, there would have been thorough recounts and investigations into the several anomalies reported, no matter what the consequences.
But that did not happen because the best interests of the voters were a variance with the best short-term interests of the nation. By short-term interests I refer to the country’s credibility (on all levels from political to judiciary), economic machinery, public opinion, International standing, and so forth. Had Gore not been quashed in a system passed as legal, a lengthy battle over the election results would have further harmed this list of items in the short term. At least, that’s my impression.
Of course. But the selection of the electors was not the case… the recounts were. SCOTUS decided on which recounts were valid, and which votes to include. Sure, the state electors were selected as a result of that, but there was no direct intervention upon the electors (or elector selection policy) by the SCOTUS.
Now, try saying “selection electors electors selected intervention elector selection” three times fast.
I’m not convinced that hasn’t happened with Bush appointed to office. At the least, our country’s credibility and international standing haven’t been improving since the inaugueration. And you don’t need to be alan Greenspan to see that the “economic machinery” is having problems right now.
[SUB](Ah, let’s just admit Rehnquist and O’Connor wanted to retire under a Republican administration and be done with it…)[/SUB]
I completely agree with you, Ace. This quote was from a column by Andrew Sullivan. He mentioned the poll to dramatize his main point – that the NYT and WP have been giving W worse coverage than they gave Clinton. As you observed, the mention of this on-line poll actually weakened his case, because the poll is worthless. I had noticed the problem, but quoted Sullivan’s article anyhow, because it was relevant to the OP, it included some (presumably) factual info, and it was amusing.
Sullivan’s main point about the NYT and WP comes from a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who, I believe are affiliated with or sponsored by the Pew Memorial Trust. These people probably are reliable. (On the other hand, I can’t guarantee that Sullivan reported their result accurately.)
Tejota:
**
And doesn’t Florida law give the power to the Secretary of State to certify a vote count? And didn’t Florida’s Secretary of State do that? And what was the result of that vote count?
And doesn’t Florida law say electors will be chosen in a manner proscribed by the state Legislature? And what was the Legislature preparing to do (or, more to the point, what travesty were they preparing to ensure didn’t happen) before the U.S. Supreme Court rightly made the point moot?