Someone on another thread posted this:
Clinton is a magic man, he will walk out of the White House holding his head high and the American people won't remember a thing of his last 8 years, only that Gore was power hungry. Is this a great country or what?
My response:
And Bush isn't power hungry...??
He's been fighting the recounts extremely vigorously, beginning with the first-filed lawsuit. To stop them. While he was (barely) ahead.
He and his team are doing anything they can not to see the recounts completed. To keep his slim lead. So he will win Florida.
Do you not consider any of actions to indicate his hunger for power...?
We all hear endlessly about count and recount. What everyone has forgotten is that there are thousands of ballots - those not read by the machines - that have not yet been counted at all. Not even once.
There has been so much rhetoric, so many lawsuits, so many opinions, so little just-the-facts-ma'am reports, and so on ad infinitum that everyone has forgotten those ballots that have yet to ever be counted. No one knows who those votes, if counted, will be for.
Obviously the Gore side believes - or hopes - there will be enough votes in those yet-uncounted ballots for him to win. Maybe the Bush side believes that too. Otherwise, why would his side be fighting every step of the way against manual count completion? Bush is doing everything he can to be sure that all votes are not counted.
The request for manual recounts by the candidate who is behind in the votes is a legal right as established by Florida law. As soon as they began, the Bush side began the lawsuits (very plural) to stop them. If Bush wasn't power hungry, he could have simply let them be completed. If he didn't like the results he could have then contested them, as would be his right. Bush is afraid to be in the position of having these yet-uncounted votes tallied and seeing a (possible) Gore win - and then having to contest that result or not. He doesn't want to be in that position so he is doing everything he can now to prevent that. To try to grab an extremely, extremely close win. Oh yeah, Bush is power hungry.
Why didn't he do that - just let the count be completed then contest the results? He has tried to stop them while accomplishing the slowing down of the recount process at the same time.
Tactics.
Bush made a great show during the campaign of repeatedly stating that he was 'the one' who could reach across party lines to unite the country. Pffffft... The rhetoric coming from him and his team has done everything to help polarize the country and public opinion.
Some reach he has there.
Apparently the reaching across of party lines comes and goes when convenient, just like his 'trust in the people' comes and goes. |
