What the fuck ever. They couldn’t have had the distraction squelched and then resumed the counting at a later date, or god forbid, at a different location?
If they really had felt threatened, there were numerous routes they could have taken. I mean, they did go home that night without getting killed on the way to their cars, Jeez. Toughen up guys.
rjungs link only ID’d about a dozen protestors.
This is the first I’ve heard of ‘protestors’ actually accomplishing what they set out to do.
Yes, because we all know that if you didn’t see the other hundred-some-odd-folks in that one photograph, they weren’t there. :rolleyes:
We’re not talking protestors, we’re talking about a Republican mob.
<elucidator>
Take him out and shoot him. I’ll sign the warrant later.
</elucidator>
Follow the link and read about the politics involved. Unfortunately, the folks charged with upholding the sanctity of a Federal election had to worry about how they’d do in a local election if they enforced the laws.
You know, back in the 1960s, lots of protests took place out of doors. But when they got inside buildings, they were generally effective in shutting things down. And for good reason.
Wow, it only ID’s about a dozen by name!! Proof positive that that was all there were.
IOW, you made no effort to ascertain the size of the protest in the links he gave you access to; you just assumed the size of the protest without a cite.
It’s not like that. You make an assertion, you back it up. Instead, you blew it; you were off by a multiple of 100, and now you’re backpedaling like crazy. You lose.
His direct link was extremely misleading. The photo showed about a dozen folks, all with ID tags on them and what looked like a few reporters. It made no mention of a ‘hundred’ rioters. You’re right, I should have checked out the other reports but rjung linked an incomplete story.
You fail to mention that the protestors had a legit gripe. It seemed that the democratic leaning counters were selectively choosing precincts that would favor Gore and made observing the proceedings difficult or impossible. Staging a riot seemed to be the only way to stop the cheating.
If it had been the other way around, rjung, and RT would have been calling for the counters heads and condoned such actions. For sure.
This sentence will, I predict, come back to bitch-slap you in the future.
Astounding how you can read the actions of others. Does that work the other way, too? Can I say what you will do in a situation that never existed? Please?
Huh? 
<rubbing eyes>
Maybe. The protestors were concerned that the ballots were being unfairly handled, interpreted and counted. They tried less demonstrative means but failed.
I’m going on past performances wherein certain members have tended to over-exaggerate things that the right did. Have a gander at all the threads that get started just because GW mispronounces a word and you’ll see what I mean.
Read this article - Washington Post.
A few snippets;
*One of the canvassers, a career bureaucrat named David Leahy, had even declared the lack of any vote-counting standard a virtue. He needed “the flexibility,” as his spokeswoman put it, to “look at the totality of the ballot to determine the intent of the voter.”
Like other reporters, I had to watch from 10 feet away and strain to hear this subtle, epic search for “intent.” Mr. Leahy would take a ballot and hunt not just for dimples but for any mark at all, even pregnant chads still in their first trimester. I saw him bend or twist several ballots, which can’t be good for chads that have already been machine-counted three times. *
*Most of these ballots were clearly punched for a Senate candidate and other offices. Only the presidential mark was in doubt. So they weren’t the ballots of seniors too confused or weak to punch through. They might have been those of voters who disliked both presidential candidates. But a partisan vote down the ballot was deemed to be one indication of intent.
Every Democrat described this guesswork recounting as “professional” or “fair.” But every Republican was seething. “You should see what they’re calling a dimple,” said Neal Conolly, a mild-mannered New York lawyer who volunteered to spend his vacation here. “It’s the most minor imperfection in the paper. I wouldn’t even call it a crease.” *
*The tipping point came Wednesday, after the Florida Supreme Court said manual counts must be included, but by a Sunday deadline. The three canvassers reacted first by dropping a complete recount, thus omitting pro-Bush Cuban-American precincts. They would count only the 10,750 ballots that machines had spit out for no presidential vote. These were mostly from Democratic precincts.
Then the Three Counting Sages repaired to semi-isolation, forcing TV cameras to watch through a window and keeping reporters 25 feet away. That did it. Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to “Shut it down,” and semi-spontaneous combustion took over.
The Republicans marched on the counting room en masse, chanting “Three Blind Mice” and “Fraud, Fraud, Fraud.” True, it wasn’t exactly Chicago 1968, but these are Republicans. Their normal idea of political protest is filling out the complaint card at a Marriott.*
***If Al Gore loses his brazen attempt to win on the dimples, one reason will be that he finally convinced enough Republicans to fight like Democrats. ***
You are actually attempting to justify the disruption of the counting of votes as a valid political tactic? In this country? Frankly, I’m fucking stunned.
Nope, never. The WAY they were being counted.
See, though, they didn’t wait until everything was said and done before starting to wail. Hell, they barely waited for it to begin. And I’m sorry, but here in the US one doesn’t riot to get one’s way. Bad form, boorish and decidedly stinking of vigilante justice. Or am I perhaps misunderstanding you?
Like what, precisely? This happened all the way back in 2000. Hell, that was two wars and one attempted disenfranchisement of voters ago.
Quote: Read this article - Washington Post.
If it´s from the Post, why does it say Wall Street Journal at the top of the page?
And it isn´t an article, it´s an editorial.
Thanks, I was reading three different aritcles on the subject and linked the right one but headed it wrong.
What?
Every re-count kept inching the total Gore count in his favor, how lucky of him. Panic set in. Read the linked articles like RT suggested I do.
Lucky or accurate? The “panic” is understandable, though.
I remember hearing (at the time) that it would be statistically impossible for subsequent recounts to keep favoring the same person time after time. But due to the fact that some (many) of the ballots were being interpreted caused this phenomena to occur.
See there. Instant conspiracy theory. And you were being dismissive of we dumbass liberals earlier.
Tsk, tsk.
Tsk, tsk indeed.
And when the results are coming out so that you are going to lose, and you decide that the best way to stop those results is by rioting, well. . .you’re a boorish ass engaging in bad form and treading dangerously close to vigilantism. D’you see how this works? Wouldn’t matter if those rioting had been liberals, either. Throwing down and acting in a threatening fashion is wrong.
Also, what were those “less demonstrative means” that you mentioned earlier? I honestly don’t recall any, but as I said, so very much has happened in the last four years.
Attempts to get court orders and appeals.
And we all know that the process of law is so dull and slow and uncertain. Better to gather a mob and just storm the place, like what all the Gore supporters did to the Supreme Court. You get the idea that for some people the perversion of the Vince Lombardi saw is a basic credo – any thing to win. Principle is after all an ephemeral thing and sometimes inconvenient.