Good Riddance to Decade That Began With Theft of the Presidency

[kpete]

Good Riddance to Decade That Began With Theft of the Presidency
posted by John Nichols on 12/31/2009 @ 12:44am
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The original sin of the good-riddance decade came in December of 2000, when the United States Supreme Court intervened to stop a complete recount of the votes in Florida and then declared George Bush to be the president.

This extreme judicial activism was not merely a devastating assault on American democracy. It set in motion the Bush presidency, and with it the pathologies that the Bush-Cheney administration imposed on the country in the form of unnecessary wars, failed economic policies, assaults on civil liberties and crudely divisive and hyper-partisan governance.

Bush, Dick Cheney and aides are surely to blame for much of what ailed America during the 2000s, and for what will ail America for decades to come.

But it was the U.S. Supreme Court's unprecedented meddling in the presidential election process – an intervention that would have horrified the founders of a republic that was supposed to enjoy a separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers – made the Bush-Cheney interregnum possible.

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This is not some radical notion, not some conspiracy theory.

more:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/510712/good_riddance_to_decade_that_began_with_theft_of_the_presidency

[chimpymustgo]

1. Good riddance. K&R.

[scheming daemons]

2. The history books will talk about how the election of 2000 changed the course of history

....and not in a good way.

[bdamomma]

3. yes unfortunately, the beginning of the coup d'état

[Winterblues]

4. I have live through six decades and the last was by far the worst

In every single way possible. Good Riddance is my exact sentiment as well.

[rudy23]

5. The Aughts: the decade that aught not to have been

I feel like this decade never really even got started.

[tridim]

6. I'm pretty surprised that so many people are calling the 2000's correctly.

The Bush/Cheney legacy of evil is being cast in stone.

I assumed there would be much more whitewash from the powers that be.

[seafan]

7. Good Riddance to Decade That Began With Theft of the Presidency

John Nichols at The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/510712/print">sums up this last decade:


December 31, 2009

.....

The original sin of the good-riddance decade came in December of 2000, when the United States Supreme Court intervened to stop a complete recount of the votes in Florida and then declared George Bush to be the president.

This extreme judicial activism was not merely a devastating assault on American democracy. It set in motion the Bush presidency, and with it the pathologies that the Bush-Cheney administration imposed on the country in the form of unnecessary wars, failed economic policies, assaults on civil liberties and crudely divisive and hyper-partisan governance.

Bush, Dick Cheney and aides are surely to blame for much of what ailed America during the 2000s, and for what will ail America for decades to come.

But it was the U.S. Supreme Court's unprecedented meddling in the presidential election process – an intervention that would have horrified the founders of a republic that was supposed to enjoy a separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers – made the Bush-Cheney interregnum possible.

Bush, it must be remembered, did not win the popular vote nationally.

.....

Even the media consortium that tried -- after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the ensuing spike in presidential approval ratings -- to suggest a scenario under which Bush might have won produced more scenarios under which Gore would have won.

Media outlets that looked beyond the partisan spin to the reality of what the ballots revealed acknowledges as much.

As The Associated Press noted, "Under any standard that tabulated all disputed ballots statewide, however, Gore erased Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes."

The Washington Post was even more blunt, stating that, "If there had been some way last fall to recount every vote -- undervotes and overvotes alike, in all 67 Florida counties -- former vice president Al Gore would be the White House."

The Palm Beach Post, which conducted its own review of the ballots and also participated in a review by a consortium of media outlets, concluded: "Uncounted ballots and voter confusion cost Gore the election."

Actually, that's not quite right.

The Supreme Court's blocking of the full and consistent recount that could have sorted through the confusion cost Al Gore an election. But the consequences were far greater for the republic, which lost a decade of its promise and possibility to the excesses and abuses of George Bush's illegitimate presidency.

Maybe a blue moon on a clear night in Florida on New Year's Eve 2009 is a good omen.



May our Earth find peace.

[Samantha]

8. It has been appalling to me that those reviewing the terrible

things that happened during "The Decade From Hell" skipped right over the theft of the 2000 election. Thanks for posting this.

Sam