Big Media already declaring war. This editorial is truly remarkable in its spiteful and bitter tone. Perhaps you should have a drink before you read it. Hope you've already had dinner:
Minneapolis Red Star and Sickle
Editorial: An end, a beginning
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Vice President Al Gore was magnificent Wednesday night. This man whom many deride for being wooden and pedantic was neither. He spoke with conviction, warmth and magnanimity. As he conceded the highest office in the land, an office he believes he won, he gave a masterful talk.
Gov. George W. Bush gave an acceptable speech. He was gracious to Gore and to Democrats generally -- pledging truly to reach across the chasm now separating the two parties in search of bipartisanship. But he went too far, at precisely the wrong time, in promoting his own policy agenda. In doing so, he misjudged the moment.
Gore struck the right note on the controversial Supreme Court ruling that gave Bush his victory. Gore takes strong exception to the decision, which is fine. Many scholars do the same, and when this decision is evaluated years hence, it likely will be judged a cobbled-together, internally inconsistent document pushed through by five justices who suspended their powers of intellect to serve partisan ends.
Notwithstanding that, Gore firmly, commendably accepted the court's judgment as the final word. That was it; he'd lost, and the hour had come to recognize George W. Bush as the nation's president-elect. As Gore has said, Bush will be his president too.
All Americans should follow in Gore's example. To use a football analogy, Bush should not be penalized personally because people believe the referees made a horrible call. It will be Bush who is inaugurated on Jan. 20. The American people must now get accustomed to treating him with the gracious deference due the presidency -- guided perhaps by a determination not to repeat the vile treatment to which the Republicans have subjected the Clintons for eight years.
Uniting behind a president does not, however, mean uniting behind his party's agenda, and it is important that Bush and the Republicans in Congress understand that.
Consider: All Americans know that Gore won the popular vote. Many, perhaps even most, believe that he also would have won the Electoral College vote if a fair recount process had been allowed in Florida. So while they must accept Bush as their president, neither the people nor the opposition in Congress should stand still for a Republican effort to steamroll through a radical GOP program.
In practical terms that means no effort to push through the huge and unwise tax cuts -- tilted toward the rich -- on which Bush campaigned. It means no radical effort to privatize Social Security. It means no extreme conservative, antichoice nominees to the Supreme Court, and no move up to chief justice for Antonin Scalia, the most divisive justice in recent memory. It means no effort to put in place other out-of-the-mainstream policies promoted by the Christian Coalition and others in the religious right community. It means, ultimately, governing from the center, not the extremes. Do President-elect Bush and the Republicans in Congress truly grasp that? Everyone should hope they do.
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