Fighting the War on Error

"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
- Political & Social Activist Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989)

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Scalia: "Get over" 2000 election decision

The insipid Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appears Sunday night on 60 Minutes, and Leslie Stahl asks him about Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court decision that effectively stopped the Florida recount in 2000. His response: "Get over it," and he also gives a similar answer to a small group, and afterward, says, "So there."

What a clown. Scalia represents another of the disastrous legacies of President Reagan that we all should be so grateful for. It's too bad that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, because if they weren't, he probably would've been bounced from the bench a long time ago.

I'm amused by Scalia's disingenuous retort that "Gore brought it [the 2000 election] into the courts. What were we supposed to do?" I obviously haven't seen the whole interview yet, but I hope that Stahl pressed him on this point - the reason that Al Gore did just that is because he was getting royally screwed in Florida by faulty voting machines, and many, many voting irregularities.

It almost is too obvious to mention that if the Supreme Court case in 2000 involved Bush's supporters being disenfranchised, as Gore's supporters actually were, you can bet that recount would have happened.

Another side note about judges - it will never cease to amaze me how Dubya puts down lawyers and judges - especially judges. Any judge who renders a decision he doesn't like is an "activist judge," but when a judge rules in a way Bush approves of, his mouth is taped shut. I wish someone would have pointed out to Our National Embarrassment a long time ago that it was judges and lawyers who put him into office in the first place, so before he goes putting them down, he should consider that. (A great time to do this would have been in '04, when Bush mocked John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, as a "trial lawyer" in just about every debate, especially during questions about tort and medical malpractice reform. Another missed opportunity by Kerry. Sadly, there were more than a few of those.)

Despite the smug Scalia's dismissive comments, we aren't getting over it, and the biggest reason, at least for me, is because I can't help but wonder what kind of a country we would be living in had Gore become president in 2000. Some things very well may have happened, including 9/11, but the War in Iraq almost certainly would not have, along with a laundry list of other unfortunate events these last 7+ years.

Anyway, I bring up issues like this, because if McSame is elected, we are going to have a Supreme Court with plenty of more judges like Scalia.

And that's one scary thought.

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