# Never liked Bush but the shrub grows on ya **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2001, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109 "2001-11-08T02:45:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/181 "2001-11-14T23:14:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* \*\* > Here’s a clue: this stuff didn’t start in the Supreme Court. It started when the Wooden Indian renegged on his concession, and set in motion a proceeding designed to incite litigation. > > \*\* (underline mine) Oy gavalt you can’t \* possibly \* be serious! That is possibly the most perfectly ridiculous thing I might ever have seen stated on these boards in reference to the election. And what if the vote had gone in Gore’s direction when the counting was finished…would you have him say “Oh well, I conceded. I don’t want to be an indian giver…let him become president.” ? > [@](#): > > \*\* > There was one and only one way to defend against what Gore did. And that’s what Bush did. Can you give a good reason why Bush should not have been entitled to seek remedy? > \*\* See, this is the mindset that confounds me. \*\* “Remedy” \*\*for \* \*\* what? \*\* \* Seeking an accurate count of the votes? And in your mind this is equivalent to what…chellenging him to a duel? Slapping him silly? Screwing his wife? I’ve always felt that the Bush supporters in this thing have been doing some major mental gymnastics to arrive at their conclusions, and you are proving to be Exhibit A. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* \*\* > I do think they made an error in asking for a selective hand recount to follow the two mandated-by-law machine recounts. They would have done better asking for a statewide hand recount at that point. > \*\* If you’ll visit Elucidator’s thread on this subject (which is where this conversation should be occurring, sez I again) Tejota explains why he could not do so legally. (And had no reason to practically, since the problem ballots were confined to a few counties.) It may have been a bad decision strategically, but it’s wasn’t a wrong decision legally. stoid ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/182 "2001-11-14T23:52:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > I don’t think Gore’s team changed any rules as his team understood them, or tried to. I do think they made an error in asking for a selective hand recount to follow the two mandated-by-law machine recounts. They would have done better asking for a statewide hand recount at that point. They couldn’t ask for a statewide hand recount. It wasn’t an option to them. Florida law only gave them the right to ask for a hand count in an individual county. To recount the state the would have had to go individually to each county and make the request locally, and in each case they would have to give a reason to believe that the machine count was inaccurate. Even then, each county had the right to refuse to hand count. So its no surprise that he only asked for 4 counties to be hand counted. Those 4 counties represented the majority of the undervotes. The only thing ‘selective’ about the choice of counties was the fact that he went where the machine count had failed most obviously. The fact that they were mostly democratic counties is either a coincidence (or if you are a conspiracy theorist) evidence that of a republican attempt to rig the election. (Hindsight would show us the overvotes also represented machine count failures, but at the time no one knew that). see [This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=98543&pagenumber=2) [From the NY Times](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12604-2001Nov11.html) > [@](#): > > In fact, the four-county strategy Gore and his team tried to pursue, the data suggests, would have sent him to defeat if it had been allowed to proceed uninterrupted. **Gore’s legal team has said that there was never a legal avenue to pursue a statewide recount;** their goal was instead to find as many votes in the localities where there was evidence that machine counts had missed votes. ---
**Author:** ![llamasex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bbce88/32.png) [@llamasex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llamasex)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/183 "2001-11-15T00:00:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Hamasex Said: > > > [@](#): > > > > I hope this isn’t against the rules it is just a portion of the article. > > > > ## quote: > > > > The first reporter from India asked Bush about a suicide truck explosion last month that killed 38 people at the state legislature in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir. “Sir, why are there two laws in this world, one for America and one for the rest of us?” the reporter asked. “When terrorism hits America, you go halfway across the world and make war in Afghanistan. But when we suffer terrorism, you ask us to be restrained. Is an Indian right less precious than an American right?” > > > > Bush replied: “I think there is one universal law, and that’s terrorism is evil, and all of us must work to reject evil. Murder is evil, and we must reject murder. When the terrorist attacks took place on October the 1st, I strongly condemned them, and I will continue to condemn them.” > > > > * * * > > > > These kind of answers don’t bring nay honor or dignity, THEY MAKE US LOOK LIKE IDIOTS! Since he is our figurehead, people look at him and see America how embrassing. > > Okay, so you are President Bush standing there. How would YOU answer this question? \*\* It doesn’t matter, I want the person who represents the country I live in to be a good public speaker. Because that is basically the ONE job he has to be able to do. You can get people smarter than him to make the big decisions, but he has to be able to convince people they are the right choices. Bush frankly sucks at doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/184 "2001-11-15T00:06:41Z")
The media recount only showed a Bush win in some counting scenarios because they **didn’t** discard the absentee ballots that had been illegally counted. again [from the NY Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/politics/15BALL.html) > [@](#): > > …Over the next 18 days, the Republicans mounted a legal and public relations campaign to persuade canvassing boards in Bush strongholds to **waive the state’s election laws** when counting overseas absentee ballots. (bolding mine) > [@](#): > > In an analysis of the 2,490 ballots from Americans living abroad that were counted as legal votes **after Election Day** , The Times found **680 questionable votes**. Although it is not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, **four out of five** were accepted in counties carried by Mr. Bush, The Times found. Mr. Bush’s final margin in the official total was 537 votes. 680 \* 4/5 = 544. 544 \> 537. If you add in this factor, Bush looses under every scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/185 "2001-11-15T00:18:04Z")
Tejota: It’s not a strawman. A strawman is when you set up a fake argument just to knock it down. What you’re thinking of is misattribution. You would be correct if I was talking about Gore, but I wasn’t. I was responding to a direct quote from another poster. ---
**Author:** ![themoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9dc877/32.png) [@themoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themoon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/186 "2001-11-15T00:27:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*Therefore my original statement, that the most accurate and nonpartisan counts were the initial machine ones, remains correct. \*\* Well, clearly you would like to think so. Your partisanship tells you that the count that gave Bush the win was the most correct, and this is what you base your opinion on. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/187 "2001-11-15T00:45:43Z")
Here’s some conclusions. Let me know if you agree. 1. The Florida vote was a statistical tie. That means the results were inside the margin for error of the process. When you factor in voter error, the closing of the polls, machine error, human error, the freakin’ chads, the handling of the ballots, different voting processes at different locations, ballot design, the overseas vote, different counting processes, etc. etc. etc. you have created probably a 1% plus variance into the results from what actually occured. The vote was well within this margin, therefore we can’t **absolutely** measure who one. It’s like trying to use a yardstick to measure a microbe. 2. If we add up all the mistakes and miscalculations and do our best to take a guess as to what effect they might have had on the vote, it seems to suggest a Gore victory is what would have happened in FL, had the vote been perfect. I’d take a wag and peg the odds at .66 for a Gore victory and .34 for a Bush. 3. We don’t alter elections on guesswork, or would’ve, or should’ve. 4. Bush or Gore themselves actually had little to do with the aftermath of the FL. election and their lawsuits. It was in the hands of their respective lawyers. Had the roles been exactly reversed and had Gore had Bush’s advisors and Vice-versa it would have happened the exact same way. So, the arguments “Bush stopped the counts!” or “Gore just can’t counting and recounting until he gets the answer he wants!” are moot. These guys weren’t doing it. Their advisors and Attys. were. In the persons shoes, each team would have done the same becasue it was the smart thing. 5. Gore had some bad luck and his advisors made some big strategy mistakes early in the recount process that probably cost him the election. Bush didn’t really win, but Gore really lost. 6. Bush is President now. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/188 "2001-11-15T00:50:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by themoon \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > > \*\*Therefore my original statement, that the most accurate and nonpartisan counts were the initial machine ones, remains correct. \*\* > > Well, clearly you would like to think so. Your partisanship tells you that the count that gave Bush the win was the most correct, and this is what you base your opinion on. \*\* My partisanship tells me no such thing. Logic tells me that for the reasons mentioned: 1. Human innacuracy 2. Human partisanship 3. Deterioration of ballot condition through handling That the machine counts were the most accurate that occured. If you wish to refute that, you can’t with an opinion. You need to show better logic, or that my logic or assumptions are wrong. So, NEENER NEENER NEENER. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/189 "2001-11-15T01:12:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by themoon \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > > > **Rjung: > > > The most accurate and unpartisan counts that we had were the machine ones, which occured quickly.** > > > > This is the exact opposite of the truth. In fact, the machines that were used to count the ballots were quite prone to error, as the inventor of the machines testified to in court. > > > > Furthermore, the machines in poorer counties were much more likely to throw out legal votes than in richer counties. > > > > The hand recounts were much more accurate. \*\* > > Clearly you would like to think so. Humans are prone to error, are partisan, and the votes had been continually manipulated by the time of and during the houndcounts. Standardized criteria were not being used. > > I would agree that a strictly impartial standardized handcount is potentially more accurate than a machine count, but that is not what we had with the handcounting. > > Therefore my original statement, that the most accurate and nonpartisan counts were the initial machine ones, remains correct. \*\* Nonsense. Any ballot punched clearly enough for a machine to count would be unambiguous, there was no room for partisan manipulation of _those_ ballots in a hand count. The only room for partisanship was in the reading of the ballots that the machine couldn’t handle. It is simply not possible to _reduce_ accuracy by hand counting. It would be possible to have bias within the error correction that handing counting provides, that is all. But the possibility of partisanship was solved by the proceedures of handcounting in Florida Law. You talk as if this was going to be democratic officials in a back room doing the counting, but nothing could be further from the truth. In each case, there were republicans on the counting board, and observers present. Furthermore, in the recount finally ordered by the Fla SC, there would be a Judge to be the final arbiter of all ballots. And as for lack of standard criteria, this is beside the point because **Florida law required it**. There was no legal way to correct that deficiency in Florida law, and in any case, this effect is smaller than the bias inherent in having different ballot types in different counties. If there is an equal protection violation in lack of standards for hand counts, there’s an even bigger one in the lack of standards for voting technologies. Isn’t it convenient that you ignore the larger bias thar harms democrats almost exclusively, but complain about the smaller **potential** bias that you can’t even show existed? ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/190 "2001-11-15T01:57:09Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Human innacuracy Solved via reduncy > [@](#): > > 1. Human partisanship Solved via a panel rather than an individual making the determination, with observers present. > [@](#): > > 1. Deterioration of ballot condition through handling fiction, created by the republicans for the purpose of casting doubt on the accuracy of hand counts. and you leave out other factors 1. machine inaccuracy 2. technology variance between counties & even within counties. > [@](#): > > That the machine counts were the most accurate that occured. If you wish to refute that, you can’t with an opinion. You need to show better logic, or that my logic or assumptions are wrong. So, NEENER NEENER NEENER. And You have to show that the factors you mention are even relevant much less dominant. Neener yourself. ---
**Author:** ![themoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9dc877/32.png) [@themoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themoon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/191 "2001-11-15T02:05:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*1. Human innacuracy > 2. Human partisanship > 3. Deterioration of ballot condition through handling > > That the machine counts were the most accurate that occured. If you wish to refute that, you can’t with an opinion. You need to show better logic, or that my logic or assumptions are wrong. So, NEENER NEENER NEENER. \*\* Well, your extreme partisanship is showing through again. (You like that argument? It is one of your favorites.) Your assumptions are flawed because every ballot that was counted had to be verified by a republican, a democrat, and an independent observer. On the other hand, some of the machines were so bad that they would throw out ballots if they had been folded too sharply. \Really, you should stop pretending that you are being objective at all here. It is painfully obvious that you just wanted Bush to win, and that you will use any excuse to try to justify his legitimacy.\ ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/192 "2001-11-15T02:50:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stoid \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > > There was one and only one way to defend against what Gore did. And that’s what Bush did. Can you give a good reason why Bush should not have been entitled to seek remedy? > > I’ve always felt that the Bush supporters in this thing have been doing some major mental gymnastics to arrive at their conclusions, and you are proving to be Exhibit A. :::::::snort::::::: This is even funnier than your five-minute backpedal over who dragged who into court earlier in the thread! Do you — HAHAHAHAHAH! — do you honestly, Stoid – and really, please just think about it for two seconds, and **read his freakin’ screen name and his old threads** – oh geez – do you really think that **Libertarian** is a _ **Bush supporter** _??? I quite literally cannot, in a million, trillion years, conceive of Lib – who, when he visited Kent State, sent me a poignant e-mail about the students who died there in protest of the war – voting for a Republican. Ever. What the hell _is_ it with you bunch, that the minute someone does something besides support Al Gore, you assume he or she is a Bush voter or a Republican? You do it, ElvisL1ves does it, rjung does it, the whole lot of you do it. Is your worldview so limited that you can’t imagine someone approaching the matter from an academic viewpoint? How sadly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/193 "2001-11-15T03:06:29Z")
Thunder from on high from **Pldennison**! How utterly devestating! All our arguments and facts lay about us in tatters because he can state, without equivocation, that **Libertarian** is **not** a Republican! We are shattered, of course. All our nefarious plans are put to flight by this single CRUSHING revelation! **Libertarian** is not a Republican! **Stoid** there is no option: you must immediatly repair to a place of execration, there to perform the Ancient Tasmanian Ritual of Self-Abnegation, accompanied by a chorus of Bitter Virgins, intoning dirges of Woe and Humiliation! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/194 "2001-11-15T03:07:02Z")
**pldennison:** Thank you for those links. I was frankly flabbergasted by Elvis’ assertion that I NEVER refer to the U.S. as ‘you’, and NEVER talk about Canadian issues. Anyone reading my messages can see that I use the terms rather interchangeably as the subject warrants, or when I just plain forget. And no, I don’t talk about a lot of Canadian topics here, because there AREN’T many Canadian topics. The vast majority of people who post on the SDMB are not Canadian. But you’ll notice (as pldennison pointed out) that I participate in almost all threads having to do with Canadian issues. Sorry for the small hijack here, but I find Elvis’s attitude offensive. This is an international message board, and I am not going to stand for being treated like a second-class poster who has to be constantly on the outside and refer to the majority of the board as ‘you guys’ simply because I live in a different country. The Internet is borderless, which is one of the great things about it. And really, this was just another ad hominem attack by Elvis. He doesn’t like what I post, so now he has to resort to attacking my patriotism and my mental state. If you’d like to discuss it further, Elvis, head on over to the pit and let’s put the gloves on. Anyway… **Hamasex:** The reason I asked you what Bush SHOULD have said is because usually when people criticise someone for saying something, they had a better response in mind. If you can’t think of anything better to say than what Bush DID say, then perhaps he gave the best answer that it was possible to give. In case you didn’t notice, the question was a, “Have you stopped beating your wife” type of question that had no real satisfactory answers. Sometimes you just have to stonewall such questions as Bush did. **Stoid:** I’ve agreed all along that Gore would have won if the ‘intent’ of the voters were all that mattered. But you can’t elect someone based on what we ‘obviously’ know. The U.S. is a nation of laws. There is no law that says, “If it’s obvious who should have won, just put him in the oval office”. Procedures have to be followed. When O.J. Simpson was found innocent, almost everyone thought that it was a travesty of justice. But it’s the result the system produced, so there were no calls for a lynching. The legal system isn’t perfect, and neither is the electoral system. And it certainly can be improved for the next election. But for the last one, a valid conclusion had to be reached based on the procedures in place. That led to Bush being elected. It probably wasn’t ‘fair’, but it was the law. I do take exception with the idea that Gore was just trying to follow the law, and Bush was trying to stop him. Gore was NOT just trying to follow the law - he was trying to use every legal trick he could in order to gain an advantage, and Bush was using every legal trick to prevent Gore from gaining an advantage. There was no moral superiority on either side. In case you’ve forgotten, Gore’s team tried all kinds of strategies in court, some of which were found by the court to be acceptable, and some that weren’t. There were plenty of lawsuits abandoned and strategies changed along the way as they ran into legal hurdles. If Gore had come out on the day after the election and said, “I believe this entire state should be counted, overvotes and undervotes included”, and taken that position to the courts, he may well have prevailed. It certainly would have gotten him around the equal protection problems, and it would have definitely put him on the moral high ground. He didn’t do that, for one reason: He thought he had a better chance of winning with another, less ‘fair’ strategy. He was trying to manipulate the legal system to provide the type of recounts that gave him the best chance to win. _And there is nothing wrong with that._ But let’s not pretend that he was operating on a different moral plane from Bush. Neither had ‘fairness’ in mind, just as the defense team for O.J. didn’t have ‘fairness’ in mind. They were all doing everything they could to make the outcome turn in their favor. That’s what they are supposed to do. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/195 "2001-11-15T03:08:24Z")
Oh, almost forgot. Well said, **Tejota**! I toady. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/196 "2001-11-15T06:18:23Z")
Sam, Sam, Sam… you’re a good guy. But who do you think you’re kidding? You keep up this casual history re-writing and you’re going to make me all crazy again, and we don’t want that, now do we? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam \* \*\* > But you can’t elect someone based on what we ‘obviously’ know. The U.S. is a nation of laws. There is no law that says, “If it’s obvious who should have won, just put him in the oval office”. \*\* - \*\* And absolutely no one that I know of, most especially myself, has said that, so please stop portraying it as though anyone, especially me, ever, ever did! \*\* \* What I DID say, very clearly, and I really hate being forced to cut and paste, repeat, rephrase, and scream until you acknowledge it, is that I and many others are not happy to just “accept that it was statistically impossible to determine the winner, accept SCOTUS and get over it.” \* specifically because we do not accept that this is “just a fact”\* and we are tired of being told it is as though we are children and shouldn’t worry our pretty heads about it. It’s goddamn creepy, frankly. As far as precisely what I did say about Gore’s standing, just go read it again, this time without your partisan distortion filter. > [@](#): > > \*\* Procedures have to be followed. \*\* YES!!! Too bad BUSH did everything that was in his power to do to \*\* prevent the proper procedures from being followed. \*\* When are YOU gonna admit THAT? > [@](#): > > \*\* But for the last one, a valid conclusion had to be reached based on the procedures in place. That led to Bush being elected.\*\* NO it did NOT! Bush \*\* fighting and stonewalling \*\* the legal procedures that were already in place led to Bush being elected. Your gross slant on the truth is infuriating as hell! It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it, it will not make it true! > [@](#): > > \*\* I do take exception with the idea that Gore was just trying to follow the law, and Bush was trying to stop him. \*\* You can take all the issue you want, won’t make your version the truth. I’m not going to argue that Gore was free of self-interest, of course not. But he looked at his situation, he looked at the votes, he looked at the options, and he did, or tried very hard to do exactly what the law prescribed for such a situation. Period. Gore, whatever his true motives may have been, \* behaved \* in accordance with \*\* both \*\* the law and with morality, for want of a better term. You are welcome to say that it was just his “good luck” that the rules as they were written were going to make him look better for following them if you insist, but the bottom line is that \* he had every right, by law, and all he was trying to do was follow the law. BUSH WAS TRYING TO THWART THE LAW.\* There is a chasm between the two behaviors. > [@](#): > > \*\* I do take exception with the idea that Gore was just trying to follow the law, and Bush was trying to stop him. Gore was NOT just trying to follow the law - he was trying to use every legal trick he could in order to gain an advantage, and Bush was using every legal trick to prevent Gore from gaining an advantage.\*\* Pure spin, man, and I take \*\* huge \*\* exception to it. As I just pointed out, one man was trying to use the law that was provided to deal with the problem, the other man was using legal tricks to change, stop and thwart the law. There’s nothing that can be reasonably characterized as “legal tricks” in following the damn law! Instead of just making charges that we all know will stick to Bush and trying to drag Gore into it, start telling us what Gore did, please. > [@](#): > > \*\* If Gore had come out on the day after the election and said, “I believe this entire state should be counted, overvotes and undervotes included”, and taken that position to the courts, he may well have prevailed. \*\* See Tejota’s answer to this, which I think has been posted three times already. It can certainly be argued that Gore would have been better off asking for this, but it would have taken challenging the law as it existed. If you are claiming that Gore should have acted like Bush and was morally inferior for not doing so, I’m sorry I’ll have to decline to agree. Let me make this extra super duper clear: 1. I am not arguing that Gore was not interested in winning. Of course he was. 2. What I AM arguing is that the law was on his side in the options available to him. All he did or tried to do was follow the damn law. That’s the fact, and we are all about dealing with facts around here. For you or anyone to try and claim that you know his heart and can say with any certainty that Gore would have behaved the same way Bush did is pure speculation on your part. Go ahead and speculate, but I insist that you clearly label your speculations as exactly that. Because you do not know. 3. It is disingenuous in the extreme to declare that the \* actions \* of both men were morally equivalent simply because both men wanted to win. Bullshit. See the rest of this damn post. 4. I am also arguing that Gore fought like hell because he believed, and you even agree, that he was the man the majority of voters tried to vote for. Not because he was willing to “do anything to win”. Its because he believed he HAD won, and he wanted to see that TRUTH revealed. There’s a world of difference between the two positions, and I’ll be shocked and disappointed if you can’t see it. 5. \*\* Bush believed it, too! \*\* And that’s exactly why he wanted to try and stop it. Which is a very different thing as well. A repugnant thing. Stoid for Stoid vs. The Evil Right Election Thing 🙂 [sup]TM[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/197 "2001-11-15T06:21:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\* > We are shattered, of course. All our nefarious plans are put to flight by this single CRUSHING revelation! **Libertarian** is not a Republican! > > **Stoid** there is no option: you must immediatly repair to a place of execration, there to perform the Ancient Tasmanian Ritual of Self-Abnegation, accompanied by a chorus of Bitter Virgins, intoning dirges of Woe and Humiliation! \*\* Done. [sub]But ya know…every Libertarian I ever knew was just a Republican interested in free sex and drugs.[/sub] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/198 "2001-11-15T08:19:30Z")
Just wanted to correct a mis-type: Bush \*\* fighting and stonewalling \*\* the legal procedures that were already in place led to Bush being \* installed. \* ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/199 "2001-11-15T10:27:16Z")
As I stated in my first post on this topic, I favored neither Bush nor Gore. My begrudging choice was Browne who, though a Libertarian party member, is in essence a Constitutionalist, which is simply a slightly less extreme statist than a Democrat or Republican. It seems clear to me, as one who doesn’t hold the biases of Stoid, and doesn’t have the hysterical and frenzied convictions of Elvis, that Gore threw the election into the courts when he invoked the Florida statute, which he did suspiciously on the heels of the first lawsuit, itself filed by longtime Democrat activists. All three litigants claimed that they intended to vote for Gore, but feared that their votes registered for Pat Buchanan. This is all suspicious because of who these people are. Gaines was a member of the Children’s Services Council of Fort Lauderdale. When called to task for spending $6,000 (in taxpayer funds) on a beach retreat, she responded, “From time to time, an organization needs to look at themselves.” This person, with the savvy to deflect questions from a Sun-Sentinel reporter, claims she can’t read a ballot? She was also (shudder) a teacher. Alberta McCarthy was a Delray Beach City Commissioner. Are we to believe that she cannot match the Al Gore name with the Al Gore hole? If so, pity the poor citizens of Delray whose well-being depends upon her stewardship. She conspired with Fladell and compared notes before the suit was filed. And Andre Fladell, who appeared with his lawyer, Howard Weiss, on Larry King Live that Thursday, was a prominent Palm Beach (Boca Raton) chiropractor. He was an unabashed Democrat activist and political consultant who told journalist Howard Meyer, “Politics is the greatest challenge. It’s where the best and worst in people comes out. You get the adrenaline of war without having to physically hurt anyone.” This is the same man who told [CNSNews.com](http://CNSNews.com) that when it came to voting, “I wasn’t too bright.” Anyone who doesn’t smell agenda in those three is either naive or disingenuous. In all, there were eighteen Palm Beach county plaintiffs leading the Gore camp’s charge into the courts. You can read about the Gang of Three and some of the others at [PalmBeachPost.com](http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/election2000_problems4.html). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109/200 "2001-11-15T10:31:20Z")
As I stated in my first post on this topic, I favored neither Bush nor Gore. My begrudging choice was Browne who, though a Libertarian party member, is in essence a Constitutionalist, which is simply a slightly less extreme statist than a Democrat or Republican. It seems clear to me, as one who doesn’t hold the biases of Stoid, and doesn’t have the hysterical and frenzied convictions of Elvis, that Gore threw the election into the courts when he invoked the Florida statute, which he did suspiciously on the heels of the first lawsuit, itself filed by longtime Democrat activists. All three litigants claimed that they intended to vote for Gore, but feared that their votes registered for Pat Buchanan. This is all suspicious because of who these people are. Gaines was a member of the Children’s Services Council of Fort Lauderdale. When called to task for spending $6,000 (in taxpayer funds) on a beach retreat, she responded, “From time to time, an organization needs to look at themselves.” This person, with the savvy to deflect questions from a Sun-Sentinel reporter, claims she can’t read a ballot? She was also (shudder) a teacher. Alberta McCarthy was a Delray Beach City Commissioner. Are we to believe that she cannot match the Al Gore name with the Al Gore hole? If so, pity the poor citizens of Delray whose well-being depends upon her stewardship. She conspired with Fladell and compared notes before the suit was filed. And Andre Fladell, who appeared with his lawyer, Howard Weiss, on Larry King Live that Thursday, was a prominent Palm Beach (Boca Raton) chiropractor. He was an unabashed Democrat activist and political consultant — for twenty-two years! — who told journalist Howard Meyer, “Politics is the greatest challenge. It’s where the best and worst in people comes out. You get the adrenaline of war without having to physically hurt anyone.” This is the same man who told [CNSNews.com](http://CNSNews.com) that when it came to voting, “I wasn’t too bright.” Anyone who doesn’t smell agenda in those three is either naive or disingenuous. Why, for example, had they never _before_ sued about the ballots? Like I said, this is one of those things where, if you win it’s fair, if you lose it’s foul. In all, there were eighteen Palm Beach county plaintiffs — all Democrats — leading the Gore camp’s charge into the courts. You can read about the Gang of Three and some of the others at [PalmBeachPost.com](http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/election2000_problems4.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-liked-bush-but-the-shrub-grows-on-ya/92109.md?page=11)