Does the End Justify the Means?
More than the presidency is at stake in
Florida.
BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, November 29, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST
www.opinionjournal.com
In the beginning there was Robert Bork, a
superbly qualified appellate
judge, nominated in 1987 by President Reagan
to the U.S. Supreme
Court. When hearings were held before Sen.
Joseph Biden's Judiciary
Committee, liberal Democrats commenced the
scorched earth,
win-at-all-costs, end-justifies-the-means
tactics that they are still
using in Florida today. They intentionally
misrepresented Judge Bork's
record, smeared him as a bigot and waged a
national political campaign
against him. Judge Bork was voted down 58-42,
and the term to bork
became a part of William Safire's Political
Dictionary: "to attack
viciously a candidate or appointee,
especially
by misrepresentation in
the media."
Four years later came Clarence Thomas, a man
who had been vetted
by five FBI and Senate investigations. The
liberals' tactic was the
same: misrepresent his record, trash the man,
find a witness to recant
her former praise and paint him as hostile to
our values and a danger
to the nation. The "high-tech lynching"
almost
worked; Judge Thomas
was confirmed by a slender 52-48 margin.
Then came the Clinton-Gore administration,
rich in the practice of
achieving an end regardless of the means.
Billy Dale, head of Travel
Office, dares stand up to the improper
firings
of the White House travel
staff; he is trashed in the media, the FBI is
used to harass him, and he
is prosecuted by the Clinton Justice
Department. Mr. Dale is acquitted
by a jury in record time, but the mission is
accomplished: The travel
office is staffed by Clinton people. Nine
hundred FBI files of Republicans
illegally turn up in the White House (one
such
file had been enough to
warrant a Nixon impeachment count). A simple
misunderstanding, the
Clinton lawyers said.
Vice President Al Gore makes campaign
fundraising calls from the White
House in violation of federal law. In a press
conference likely
emblematic of a Gore administration, he
reiterates again and again that
there is "no controlling legal authority"
covering his case. Mr. Gore
raises $60,000 in illegal contributions at a
Buddhist temple and says it
too was only a misunderstanding, solid
evidence to the contrary
notwithstanding.
President Clinton defends himself in a
deposition by arguing that there
are differing interpretations of what the
meaning of "is" is. The
president lies to us and under oath; a
federal
court finds that he gave
"false, misleading and evasive answers that
were designed to obstruct
the judicial process." His wife blames the
whole mess on a "vast
right-wing conspiracy." The embarrassing
White
House e-mails that will
tell us whether Mr. Gore and Mr. Clinton are
lying have been erased, or
are missing, or just can't be found.
The result of all this dissembling,
obfuscation and lying is that the law
becomes what you can get away with. Smear the
opposition;
eradicate the evidence; turn on your own if
you must; attack the
opposition as biased and partisan, and argue
every point to the bitter
end regardless of the consequence to anyone
but yourself. The end
justifies the means.
But America cannot be an honest and ethical
society without
consequences for dishonest and unethical
actions. Which brings us to
Florida and the presidential election of
2000.
It will either go down as
another victory for end-justifies-the-means
politics, or as the moment
when truth and consequences are reintroduced
to American politics
and policy.
The initial Palm Beach County results look
suspiciously as if the Bush
vote has been suppressed. According to CNN,
Rep. Bill McCollum, the
unsuccessful Republican candidate for U.S.
Senate, ran 207,000 votes
behind George W. Bush in Florida. In fact,
Mr.
McCollum received more
votes than Mr. Bush in only four of Florida's
67 counties (even running
behind in his home county, Seminole). Three
of
those four were
Republican counties, and the fourth was Palm
Beach. A very
conservative Republican, vilified as a House
manager in the
impeachment of Mr. Clinton, manages to run
1,600 votes ahead of Mr.
Bush in a liberal and heavily Democratic
county? Go figure.
After the vice president lost the initial
election count in Florida he
promptly failed the first test of a potential
presidency by adopting
Bork-Thomas-Clinton scorched earth policies
to
seek a victorious end
regardless of the means.
Florida's elected secretary of state,
Katherine Harris, follows statutory
law requiring vote totals to be certified by
5
p.m. Nov. 14. She is
smeared by Gore staff as a "commissar" and a
"hack." Overseas military
ballots are attacked one by one, following a
five-page Gore campaign
memorandum on how to do it. Successive
recounts are demanded in
selected counties, and the counting rules are
changed as the recount
progresses, but they still don't produce
enough Gore ballots. The rules
change again for yet another recount; dimpled
ballots begin to be
counted for Mr. Gore if the other offices on
the ballot have been voted
for Democrats, but not for Bush if they were
cast for Republicans.
Bush votes with punched chads clumsily taped
back in are found in
Broward County. The Democratic election
commissioners examine 105
such ballots and, according to the Associated
Press, decide the voters
attempted to correct a mistaken vote by
taping
the chad back in.
They award Mr. Gore 88 votes and Mr. Bush
seven. Meanwhile in Dade
County, election officials attempt
(unsuccessfully) to move the ballot
counting procedures to a private room and
exclude the media.
Gore operatives begin to compile dossiers on
Republican electors in
other states, likely looking for embarrassing
revelations the disclosure
of which might persuade them to see reason,
and switch their vote to
Mr. Gore.
The Florida Supreme Court hands down an
opinion based upon a
concept more compatible with Soviet ideology
than Anglo-American
jurisprudence: "The will of the people, not a
hyper-technical reliance
on statutory provisions, should be our
guiding
principle." The court
extends the recount deadline--there have been
multiple recounts
now--but on Thanksgiving Day Mr. Gore,
anticipating still not enough
votes to win, reverses his earlier stance and
says he won't abide by
the count. He then heads back to court to
convince judges to
manipulate the dimples and chads in his
favor.
The national television media are struck dumb
throughout. Their vast
resources turn a blind eye to the
manipulation
of an election. No "60
Minutes," "20/20" or objective-analysis
journalism; no incredulous Ed
Bradley or solemn Dan Rather discussing the
Scotch-taping of chads.
Their silence encourages the view that the
end
justifies the means.
Surely it is time to draw the line, to stand
upon principle and the rule
of law. There is no need to apologize for an
honest count in Florida any
more than Republican House members should
apologize for impeaching
President Clinton or Marcia Clark for
prosecuting O.J. Simpson. It is
time to reject firmly the miasma of the
Florida Supreme Court that
some ethereal "will of the people" should
replace legislatively enacted
statutes as the law of the land.
A lot is at stake here. A presidency, yes,
but
more important is
history's indelible lesson that in a civil
society the end cannot justify
the means. We have taken the wrong fork in
the
road with Bork and
Thomas and Clinton and Gore. We should not
tread a single step
further. If we do not correct our mistake
now,
when? And if not in a
presidential election, where?
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware,
is
policy chairman of the
Dallas-based National Center for Policy
Analysis. His column appears
Wednesdays. |
