The election of 2000 pointed out yet again some fairly impeachable flaws in our system of government. When the will of the people can be ignored and a decision made based on the spin of a group of hand-picked shills who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to influence the outcome, there’s something incontrovertibly wrong with business as usual.
It’s difficult to decide who failed most dramatically as the events unfolded. It’s also evidently quite difficult to ignore a disturbing array of connections between the key players in this particular melodrama.
First, you have the Bush camp, who won’t deny, and just as readily not admit, that they did lose the popular vote. Well then, it’s the electoral vote that really counts in a “representative democracy”, right?
- The Governor of the state that put George Bush over the top was Jeb Bush.
- The Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, who bent the rules at will (if not outright breaking them) when establishing the guidelines and eligibility of the vote recounts was George Bush’s campaign chairperson as far back as 1999.
- Fox News was the first to call the election for George Bush. The other networks were either leaning towards Al Gore or holding back, saying it was too close to call. Incidently, a rabid Bush supporter, who just happens to be a cousin of George, was sitting on the election coverage desk at Fox that night. A suspicious mind might come to the conclusion that Rupert Murdoch was trying to stack the deck and get Gore to concede early and let his man have the big chair.
- I suppose I should avoid mentioning that George is Jr to the man who spent many a year as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, running a crack troop of experienced agents with extensive experience in overturning elections and pulling off the occasional third world revolution in their spare time. Some people might make me out to be a conspiracy theorist, so forget I mentioned it. No … really. I’m sure it had nothing to do with it
Then you have the Gore camp, who failed to follow through. They KNEW they had been had, and gave up the fight too soon. Maybe Fox News was right in thinking they could force a concession. Speaking of concessions, here’s a quote from Al Gore’s:
“Some have asked whether I have any regrets and I do have one regret: that I didn't get the chance to stay and fight for the American people over the next four years, especially for those who need burdens lifted and barriers removed, especially for those who feel their voices have not been heard.”
I’m sorry, did I miss something, Mr. Gore? Seems to me that’s the point – our voices were not heard after all. Maybe you did us a favor bowing out early rather than taking the fight to the streets, but I doubt it. Your presidency would have been different, good or bad, but it would have been YOUR presidency. If nothing else, you would have reaffirmed our collective faith in the electoral process.
The real culprits in this fiasco? The Supreme Court decided the final outcome by upholding (or at least not disallowing) the findings of Bush’s campaign chairman in Florida (AKA: the Secretary of State) who rewrote the rules on the vote recount in the state run by the candidate’s brother. Here’s a fun filled fact often overlooked – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had the deciding vote and didn’t think the fact that his son was a lead attorney with the Bush legal team important enough to recuse himself from the decision.
The Supreme Court's decision not to decide in the matter of who's in charge only reinforces the inalienable truth that our current political system is built with less structural integrity than a house of cards. We find gridlock now extends beyond the Congress and threatens the very roots of our once envied democratic society. I suspect our founding fathers would have been amazed to find that, generations later, otherwise intellegent leaders waste their time and ours attempting to somehow divine their intent concerning issues that did not exist when they lived.
Consensus seems to suggest that the justices in the marble temple were attempting to avoid invalidating the state laws governing elections in a majority of states by refusing to dictate election reform in Florida. By doing so, they leave the solution to future generations. There's always hope that changes will be in place prior to the next election to prevent the same issues from once again derailing the American Dream.
Oh … is it that time again??