As a lawyer, I must agree that perception is fact.
Fortunately for me, as a trial lawyer, in my day to day life what counts is the perception of the judge or the jury. I have a very limited world of perceptions I need to worry about. In the real world, the world that Bush and Gore inhabit, perceptions depend on whether the perceiver is logical, emotional, or incompetent, and are colored by bias, self interest, and spin.
I have the TV on in the background as I type, Fox News, and am hearing that the popular opinion is that if this matter is not resolved within the existing time frame for the Electoral College to vote, we are in a Constitutional crisis. You and I have resolved to our satisfaction that this is not the case, that the existing process has enough slack and redundancy built in that we can get along just fine with Denny Hastert. But the man on the street will not grasp these fine nuances and is likely to panic and bolt.
We can lead the population to a Constitutional solution but we can't make them accept it. They seem to be panicking. |
