Wednesday November 22 3:27 AM ET
Fla. Court Orders Continued Recount
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
dailynews.yahoo.com
Excerpt:
Exuding confidence, Gore urged Bush to tone down divisive rhetoric and meet with him for the good of the nation.
``Our country is more important than any victory,'' Gore told reporters in Washington.
But Bush, who did not comment personally, sent his spokesman, James A. Baker III, before the cameras to declare a continuing legal war, this time aimed at Florida's highest court.
``It is simply not fair ... to change the rules either in the middle of the game or after the game is played,'' said Baker. ``The Supreme Court has pretty well rewritten the Florida electoral code.''
He accused the justices, all Democratic appointees, of usurping the role of the executive branch and raised the specter of the Florida legislature stepping in ``to affirm the original rules.''
[...]
TOLD YOU SO.... from my post #6549:
It is obvious that the PARTISAN justices of Florida have swerved away from a fair and impartial course. I think that their injunction to enjoin Secr. of State Katherine Harris from ratifying the Florida ballot as of Friday 17th is a serious breach of the separation of powers. The Dems have just gone too far --it's now time for President-elect George W. Bush to publicly make the outright declaration that he has won the 2000 presidential ballot!
Again, it's not up to partisan judges to mess around with the separation of powers and interfere in an executive quarrel. If any sanction against GW Bush is to be enforced in the future it should be his dismissal in the next presidential election and not the heavy-handed overruling of the current ballot by a gang of partisan judges --otherwise, each and every future presidential election will be brought before the court and your electoral college will be surrogated by judges as a sort of "constituency of last resort"....[snip]
At this point in time, the most disturbing flaw which is concealed in that Florida thimblerig is the public confusion between a mere nullification and a deliberate miscount of some Floridian ballots --and that confusion seems to bear upon Florida's justices themselves:
NEWS ANALYSIS
Finality v. Inclusion: A Difficult Trade-Off
Charles Lane Washington Post Service
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
"What I'm concerned about," said Chief Justice Charles Wells, summing up the dilemma, "is the rights of those voters who may not have their votes counted if we don't honor the recounted votes, and the rights of all the voters who might have their rights denied if the certification doesn't get in within the time limit for naming electors."
As the remarks of both the justices and the attorneys for the two sides showed, Florida law itself is an uncertain guide through this thicket of value judgments. On the one hand, it does set an ostensibly firm deadline - one week - after which counties' election results may be tossed out by state authorities. On the other hand, the statutes also do clearly contemplate manual recounts, which, the justices noted, could easily stretch beyond that deadline even if county officials did their best to meet it.
[snip]
iht.com
_____________
The above article clearly exposes Chief Justice Charles Wells' fallacy: EVERY FLORIDIAN VOTER HAS BEEN TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT! For, as James Baker emphazised, Palm Beach's ballots were actually counted, recounted, and re-recounted!! Hence no one can still pretend that this is just about "including each and every Floridian voter fairly". What the partisan Supreme Court of Florida has recklessly ruled is for the canvassing board to contrive to declare Al Gore winner. Why else did the Supreme Court fix a deadline on Sunday 26th at 5PM?? Was it to give the (re-)recounting people just enough time to make Al Gore break even? But then again, if Al Gore still gets pipped at the post on Sunday 26th, 5PM, will his supporters cry foul and demand yet another extra time??
Besides, there's another dubious claim that went unnoticed by most political pundits: the weird assumption that some constituencies --like Palm Beach's-- couldn't swing round! I mean, over here, in Antwerp (Belgium), there're allegedly 10% of Jewish voters who vote for neo-fascist Vlaams Blok so, what's the big deal? As Flemish political pundit M. Dewinter told weekly Tram81, Antwerp's Jewish settlers know that VB's bête noire is (North) African immigration --not the Jewish diamond merchants!
Moreover, the fact that Pat Buchanan himself dismissed his 3,000+ ballots from Palm Beach is pointless: Buchanan obviously could not endorse an allegedly Jewish popularity. Therefore, for the sake of his own grassroots, he HAD to disclaim Palm Beach --regardless of real populist leanings among that particular constituency.... After all, if it's that easy to foretell how this or that county should vote then why the hell do we have a secret ballot? And, while we are at it, how about ruling once and for all that Palm Beach county shall remain a Democrat stronghold for ever?
Now, the irony with the Bilderberg ploy to lame Bush's office is that Al Gore's gonna end runner-up anyway.... Whence his bluff for unity and his call to meet one-on-one with GW Bush --past Sunday 26th and his pathetic defeat, Al Jinx Gore will just fade into oblivion.....
Gus. |
