I was listening to C-Span radio on the car on the way home last night, I don't know if you can get that but of course we can here in the D.C. metro area. When they have dead air while waiting for a press conference or other news announcement, they will take calls from viewers and listeners. The Democrats who call in are very angry, and very sad.
Bush - I assume Bush will be president - will have to be a very good president to heal these wounds, and I don't know if he can meet these expectations.
But I agree with Ray, Gore would not do a good job of bringing the country back together. And I think it is because he has shown himself not fit to govern. I would ask every Democrat or liberal on this thread, leaving aside the differences between the Democrat and Republican parties, do you think Al Gore's actions have shown him to be fit to be President?
I think Gore actually had a chance of getting his recount if only he had been reasonable about it. If he had asked that hanging chads and swinging chads and even chads with a clear stylus mark be counted, I could have accepted that, especially after hearing the testimony of Mr. Ahmann, the guy who invented the Vote-o-matic.
Vote-o-matic reminds me of Veg-o-matic. Have you ever used a Veg-o-matic? It's a piece of junk. The Vote-o-matic, apparently, slices and dices ballots better than a Veg-o-matic slices tomatoes.
OK, so the things are pieces of junk, and it's not the fault of the voters. I can live with that, I could live with that.
Sending Jesse Jackson down to orate about the butterfly ballot and Bill Daley down to talk about counting votes put genuine fear in my heart. But I could live with that, once I saw that Florida seemed to be more honest and open than Chicago.
But what I couldn't live with was counting dimpled chads. Like Klock, Sec. Harris' lawyer, said, with contempt in his voice, "Dimples for Gore." And Klock is a Democrat.
He just overreached himself. Our reading of history tells us that this is the failing of powerful men, they overreach themselves. Like Napoleon marching on Moscow. The Russians didn't stop him, the snow did.
And here Gore stopped himself because he asked for more than anyone was willing to give him.
I told Ray when this all started that I thought that, if the hanging, swinging, and otherwise partially torn chads were counted, Gore probably won in Florida. Why, oh, why was he not satisfied with that? Why did he have to go for the dimples and the pimples, the creases and the fingernail marks?
I can't remember the name of the fellow that brought down Joseph McCarthy, but I remember what he said: "Have you no shame, sir? Have you NO shame?" |
