Sam’s point, I thought, was that Gore’s request for a recount, even if SCOTUS had ruled in the Dems favor, would have resulted in a Bush victory. It would have, that is, if you believe the results of the post-election review conducted by the media consortium that, among other permutations, counted the counties and used the review critieria as requested by the Gore camp when the villanous Republicans set out to subvert the democratic process. IOW, SCOTUS, in retrospect, was not relevant in getting a particular candidate elected.
And where does Florida law dictate a full manual recount? I don’t recall even the Florida Supreme Court suggesting that, nor do I recall it ever having been pursued by either camp in a manner prescribed by law. How would this miracle have occurred, given the specific activities conducted by both camps (not the ones you wish they had conducted)?
You don’t have to be far left to see that the unspoken message in that article was that republicans could not have been counted on to act in the best interests of the nation with a democratic president.
You don’t have to be far left to see that the unspoken message in that article was that republicans could not have been counted on to act in the best interests of the nation with a democratic president.
You don’t have to be far left to see that the unspoken message in that article was that republicans could not have been counted on to act in the best interests of the nation with a democratic president.
Well, speaking for myself, I see a wishy-washy liberal orientation insufficiently committed to the Revolution, but then “far-left” is a phrase that is open to some interpretation, wouldn’t you agree?
Inflammatory title aside, the column says this: even Democrats think that Bush is doing a good job, and that if Gore were in that position he would been hampered, at least, by partisan loyalties and perceptions.
Notice that there wasn’t one word about Democrats thinking that Gore wouldn’t have been up to the job, that there was something deficient in his character that would have caused him to do worse than Dubya.
This article in Slate gives a good defense of the Clinton administration’s handling of Osama bin Laden, basically saying “yes, we should’ve taken him out when we had the chance, but Clinton didn’t have the support to do so, and anyone else in the same position would have done the same thing.”
rjung: Ah, but you missed the most important point: Gore wasn’t asking to have the whole state recounted. And in fact, the recount that SCOTUS stopped was NOT a complete recount of the state. It was the ‘selective’ recount of primarily Democratic districts, as requested by the Gore camp.
So (follow me here, I know this is tough for you), if Gore’s request had been allowed by the Supreme Court, NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED. Therefore, in hindsight it turns out that the Supreme Court’s decision was irrelevant to the result of the election.
I know in your fantasy world we would have stopped everything and waited several months for the entire state to be recounted, and in that case Gore might have actually won. But NO ONE WAS ASKING FOR THAT, legally. Not Gore, not Bush. I believe Gore brought it up informally at one point after he’d already suffered a few legal setbacks, but it never came into court as a demand for remedy.
In fact, given what actually happened you can blame the loss on GORE’s attempt to ‘steal’ the election. He clearly thought that he would win a partial recount and lose a full recount. If he had just asked for the whole state to be recounted from the start, which would have been the fairest thing to do, then he might be president today.
Look, here’s what happened: The election became too close to call, and therefore BOTH camps used every legal tool they could in order to gain the advantage. And BTW, that’s what they were supposed to do. That’s why the legal remedies are there in the first place.
But, no, Sammy, that just aint so. I haven’t the chutzpah to quote my own posts, but its there, back a ways. The 'Pubs used everything they could get their hands on, the Dems did not. Its all there.
As to what Gore did or did not request, what does that matter? If, as you say, the fairest solution was a state-wide recount, which could have very well included those voters who were unfairly ** and illegally** denied thier voting rights, it should have been done, regardless of who did, or did not, request such a remedy.
By the way:“fantasy world”, my ass! It never ceases to amaze me how you guys just love to paint yourselves as hard-headed realists. Some kind of Freudian thing, maybe, about adequacy issues? Need a hug?
Jeesh, Stoid. This “response” is even more vacuous then yours and that nasty little smiley you threw at me.
I give you MSNBC and you give us MediaWhoresOnline ? How long exactly did it take you to dredge this crap off the bottom of the web? What’s the matter? AllRepublicansAreScumFacedLiarsWhoJustWantToForceTheirOwnPsychologicalPainDownYourThroat.com not up and running?
If you think that that represents logical or reasonable thought I feel even worse for then the OP who (according to a later post) didn’t even go to his prom. I don’t even wanna guess what happened to you that fateful night.
Wow, personal slams… what a * brilliant * debate tactic! Well, I’m convinced! Anyone who consistently resorts to insults the way you do simply must have a line on the truth!
You’re talking out of your ass again Sam. I should think that the smell would bother you after a while.
Check your facts. The only recourse available to Gore (or Bush) under Fla law was to request a hand count from each county individually and show cause in each county that a hand count would have a substantive effect.
Each county had the right to refuse, accept, or do a trial recount of (2%?) of the ballots. If they chose to do the trial, then they could not refuse the full hand count if the trial showed a substative difference from the original machine count.
Gore didn’t ever have the power to request a statewide handcount. When he finally did suggest one, if you recall, it was an personal overture to Bush rather than a request to any part of the Florida election aparatus.
If anyone could have ordered a full state-wide count it would have been the Secretary of State, and since she was in Bush’s pocket the only way a full recount could happen short of a court order was to have Bush want it to happen.
I should also point out that there was no possible way the Gore could steal Florida. It was the will of the people of florida by a wide margin that he be president.
That the polls didn’t show this right a way is a combination of fradulent purging of voter polls by Harris’s office, intimidation on election day, fraud in the handling of military absentee ballots, and the unfortunate PB & Duval ballots mis-design. It took ALL of these things working against Gore to make the official tally fall within the margin of error.
We still don’t know what the result of a full hand-count of the state would have shown.
Take garbage like that to the pit. It was totally uncalled for, especially since we seem to agree that the recount that SCOTUS stopped was not, in fact, a full recount of the state. The recount that they stopped was completed by the Miami Herald after the election, and found that Bush won anyway.
BTW, the site linked in the OP is apparently a complete, bald-faced lie. The recount effort has been abandoned, as of today, without offering a result. The media consortium involved paid a university to complete the count, and then turn the results of the count over for analysis. The university did the count, but didn’t turn the results over to the media because the consortium announced that it’s now a low priority and dropped the project.
I’m guessing that the consortium has decided that it is too divisive an issue to bring up right now. Perhaps they will go back later and analyze the results, but for know that whole effort falls in the ‘unknown’ category.
Sam Stunned, I wonder if there isn’t a psychological problem that’s the opposite of paranoia? I mean, as I recall, that was the whole point, wasn’t it? That the data had been done, but wasn’t going to be released 'cause it was too “divisive”, specificly, that it might reflect badly on Our Leaders “legitimacy”.
This doesn’t strike you as, well, rather odd? All this money, all this time, and they say “Oh, never mind. No, really, its nothing, dumb idea. Just forget it, OK?”
Oh goody. Two of the kids are calling people names.
Yes, of course it would occur to me that the reason they are holding the information back is because it shows Gore won, and they think that would be too divisive now.
Except for one problem: They haven’t seen the results themselves. They have not been counted or analyzed.
What the university did was sent out hundreds of people and have them hand-tabulate all of the uncounted ballots. 180,000 of them. They just caterized them, as in “Dimpled Chad - 1 corner free”, or “Dimpled Chad - Light showing”. There were a number of pre-decided categories for each ballot.
The tabulation has been done, but the results have not been tallied, as that was the job of the media. They refused to accept the material.
Your contention is entirely correct - which is why Bush won the state every single time the votes were counted.
There is exactly one way to tell how someone voted and what they intended - check the ballot. That is the one and only valid test of intention - what was actually done. Not what you assume he should have done, not what you would like her to have done - what actually does the ballot look like?
And if some one votes who is not bright enough to connect point A to point B, as seemed to be beyond the capabilities of the Gore camp but not a normal kindergartener, it is not safe to assume that they had any intent at all. For all you know, every dim bulb actually meant to vote for Buchanan, but back peddled as fast as the Italian army as soon as the media started asking questions like “Of course you didn’t vote for the Nazi, did you? Did you?” Or maybe they played eeny meeny minie moe.
OK, we’re way past dinner and a show here, my own Mama didn’t call me that. Gonna tone this down right now…
Dear Sir/Madam or Indeterminate Other:
I have carefully examined this statement. Picked it up, turned it around, peeled it, boiled it, everything but get it. Non sequitar, as they say in Lubbock.
Here you have devastated an argument never made. Done rather a neat job of it, too, you might want to cut and paste this somewhere, keep it handy for some occasion where it might be useful.
Shitfire, Shodan, of course they had an “intent”. They motivated thier respective butts to the polls and voted! (As to the intellectual acuity of the “camps”: Gore most likely wrote more books than Bush ever read)
But it gets better…
Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot! You know just as well as I that thousands of voters believed they had voted for Gore only to discover to their dismay that they had voted for Buchanan, and complained vociferously! Is it your contention that these voters voted for Buchanan, intended to vote that way, but didn’t want to admit it? As the Amish say, “Thou art shitting me”