Not So Fine Print
Though not legally elected to the presidency, America deserves Dubya as Chief of State.
By: The Sceptic | 19November2001
Unless, twelve months ago, you were the previous tenant of bin Laden's cave, you probably remember the shameful
situation in which America -- where every vote is supposed to count -- found itself. Financial institutions can
transfer billions of dollars back and forth every day, instantly keeping track of every penny, but within a few
days, we couldn't determine exactly how many people voted for which candidates in a presidential election. As
it turned out in Florida, between a margin of error greater than the difference in counts between the candidates,
recounts, court cases and deadlines, five out of nine of the Supremes decided the election by stopping the
counting of ballots.
With the election so incredibly close in a state governed by one candidate's brother, and the nation's popular vote going against the man who moved his stapler and three hole punch into the oval office, in January, a media consortium consisting of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The (Chicago) Tribune Company, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The St. Petersburg Times, The Palm Beach Post and CNN hired the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago to examine the ballots. The study took ten months and was assisted by professional statisticians. They examined numerous hypothetical ways of recounting the Florida ballots. Under some methods, Gore would have emerged the winner; in others, Bush.
Depending on where you read the news of the findings of this study on November 12th of this year (if you did), and in case you are in the habit of merely scanning headlines, you may not be aware of who actually won that election. Had every voter's ballot in Florida been recounted (not just the counties which Bush or Gore wanted), and assuming that Florida's members of the Electoral College had followed suit, the man in the oval office today would have been Albert Gore, Jr. Bear in mind that all the members of the consortium had access to exactly the same conclusions when they simultaneously published the stories on 12November2001. Oddly, of all the versions I reviewed, the conclusion itself never made it to the headline, and was often buried several paragraphs into the article. The Chicago Tribune's headline was the most confusing with "Still too close to call". The Washington Post's headline was "Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush" but it is immediately followed by the caption "But Study Finds Gore Might Have Won Statewide Tally of All Uncounted Ballots".
It might be useful, at this point, to remind the reader that the US Constitution doesn't have provisions for what happened last November. When the Constitution was written, it was assumed that each citizen's vote was so seriously important that they would all be tallied accurately, without judges being called upon to decide, under a deadline, which counties would or would not be recounted. In the final analysis, had every vote been counted, Gore would now be president by a molecule-thin margin of as few as 60 votes. Had ethnic voters not been systematically disenfranchised throughout many Florida counties, the margin probably wouldn't have been quite so narrow.
Unfortunately, regardless of the means by which Bush moved into the oval office, America is in a crisis. It is natural for citizens who believe they are in danger to love whoever is in charge (especially if said leader is engaging in military strikes of some kind). If Bush -- supported by a ragtag army of Texas state police, National Guard and the Texas Rangers baseball team -- had managed in January to take the White House by force, his popularity rating would still be high after September 11th, while he took steps to deal with the "evildoers". In spite of November 12th's Big News that Bush is most assuredly not the legal president of the United States, most citizens don't care. Maybe they sense that between he and Gore, it wouldn't have made much difference. Maybe, given Gore's silence about the news of his actual victory (and the widespread ethnic disenfranchisement that has finally been proven), they think Gore wouldn't have been much of a leader after all. Maybe Bush is making them feel safe, and safety is more important to them right now than little details like who should have won the election. Maybe they realize that there is no lawful way to correct mistakes made a year ago.
Meanwhile, on the basis of an undeclared "war" on terrorism, and in the name of safety, the pretender and his economically and politically invested cohorts are openly dismantling the Bill of Rights and turning America into a totalitarian regime. Nor is there an overwhelming angry outcry about this fact. True patriots are not taking up arms against the oligarchy to protect their civil rights. Instead of facing this very real, easily identifiable, much more dangerous threat and doing something about it, a nation of cowards are huddled together in fear of bearded madmen, the sound of jet engines and the approach of the letter carrier. |
One of the hypothetical issues was the matter of which counties would have been recounted. If you'll recall,
Gore initially asked that all the votes in all the counties be recounted; he asked Bush to support this idea.
Bush balked, and pressed for recounts only in certain counties that he thought would give him the advantage.
With the clock ticking, Gore changed his mind and only asked for recounts in counties that he believed would be
to his advantage.
The New York Times headline seemed to be the most
deceptive with "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote" (which the
Supremes, of course, most certainly did). In that story, it takes four paragraphs to reveal "...looking at a
broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr.
Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots."
Instead, the US is being presided over by an illegally-elected Chief of State. I don't say that one bastard
would necessarily have handled the current crisis any better or worse than another, but I do think, assuming that
we live in a nation governed by law, that it would be better to have a legal leader.
In any case, Bush's popularity rating is currently 90+ percent. Given the lack of concern over the revelation
that his presidency is illegitimate, America deserves him.
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