Re: Gore's Greed (re: Sore/Loserman 2000)

[Robbie Honerkamp <robbie@shorty.com>]

WooHoo! Flame war! Yeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh! :-P

Thus spake Levien de Braal (levien@cc.gatech.edu):

> Thank you for blindly and brainlessly forwarding the Republican spin. Not
> that the Democrats aren't spinning, but you're not cheerleading them right
> now. 

<reagan>
(slowly shaking head) "There you go again.."
</reagan>

I could just as easily accuse you of blindly and brainlessly supporting
Democratic spin as well. Just because I'm expressing an opinion that
doesn't agree with your view of the world doesn't mean that it's brainless
or that I'm partisan (I'm not- Bush is a moron and Gore is a liar and
neither one deserve to be president).

> And those who have been paying actual attention to the proceedings
[...[
> county was disregarded, and the fourth county dropped the ball completely
> after they were mobbed by Republicans trying to obstruct/stop the count.

Who's the one following party lines here? The Republicans in Miami didn't
get agitated until the vote recount was moved into a room without any
party representatives in it, in violation of recount policies. And calling
a group of Republicans standing around chanting "stop stealing the vote"
a mob and claiming that they stopped the recount because of that shows
that you're not paying attention to the proceedings either. Miami stopped
the vote recount because they could not complete the recount in time to
meet the deadline to have their count finished. The elections board there
decided to stop their recount of their own free will- it's ridiculous to
think that a dozen chanting guys in the lobby would force them one way
or the other. It's government building- if they were a 'mob', they'd 
have been hauled out of there in handcuffs. Calling them a mob is just
repeating Democratic spin without any fact.

> Exactly in accordance with his prior statements, Al Gore is contesting the
> 'results' of this embarassment of an election. It's clear to me Bush is
> trying to bully his way into the White House, damn the uncounted votes.

This is a pretty colored view of things as well. Bush won the first election.
Bush has continued to win every recount since. It's pretty clear that
Gore intends to sue, sue, sue so he can count and recount votes until
he can get the results to come out the way he wants. 

Raise your hand if you actually thought that Gore wouldn't have been
back in court regardless of what happened with the recounts if he hadn't
been declared the winner. 

It's plainly not fair to have a handful of counties recount their votes
each using different standards of how they interpret fudged votes. There
should be a standard that they all use. There isn't. It's also not fair
for a handful of counties to recount their votes when other counties aren't.
Since mistakes are made in vote counts all across the country, why not 
have a recount all across the country? 

When Nixon ran against Kennedy, the vote was blatantly fudged in Kennedy's
favor in Chicago (where there were more votes than there were people who
were registered to vote) and Texas. Nixon could have stood up and rightfully
contested the election, which would have almost certainly put him in the
White House. 

But because he knew what a mess it would be and what it would do to the
country, he went against the advice of his aides and refused to contest
the election.

It's clear to me that Gore doesn't have the sense of duty to his country
that even President Nixon did. Gore is putting his greed and lust for
the presidency over what's good for his country. Even here in Nigeria,
where _everyone_ was a die-hard Gore supporter (and were all quite upset
to hear that Bush won on 8 November) Gore's support has pretty much gone.

I understand that you'll probably disagree with what she says, but I'd
like you to read this editorial by Peggy Noonan and try to see things from
a different angle:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/

I can't get the page to come up right now, so that's the closest I can
get to the actual URL. If I can get it to work later I'll send it out.
If you're looking for it, it's an editorial she wrote in the last two weeks. 

Heather wants to add:

 The margin of error to count the votes is greater than the difference between
 the candidates' totals. It's a statistical tie. If we keep recounting and
 recounting, isn't the faith in the political process eroded? It'll be better
 for America if they declare a president as soon as possible. Holding more
 recounts is only going to increase people's cynicism and apathy regarding
 the American political process.

 Another thing to think about is the United States is a nation of
 soverign states. And as much as we hate the idea, Florida has complete
 soverignty to declare whomever they wish as electors. This includes 
 the legislature intervening or whatever is Florida law.

 The real problem is that the broken American political process nominated
 two candidates for president who could not muster up enough support to
 clearly win a plurality of the vote. 

Robbie