The plaintiff argued that 12/12 was an important date in trying to fashion relief in the certification case (and in the contest) so that the process could be concluded in time for the state to take advantage of the safe harbor -- it NEVER argued that the December 12 date was the holy grail, that is, the ultimate deadline -- or that missing it, if there was good reason to miss it (for example, if the election contest was still unconcluded as of 12/12 despite good faith efforts), was the end of the story. Clearly it was not, and they NEVER made that argument.
December 12 was an artificial deadline. The absolute final deadline was January 6, the more important deadline (but clearly not the final deadline) was December 18. December 12 related solely to the safe harbor for certifications received by that date being deem presumptively correct -- the irony is that Florida clearly did not (and still does not) qualify for the safe harbor in any real sense (the issues are still not conclusively resolved -- and now they never will be) and so they do not deserve that presumption.
It is very sad when the Supreme Court, the last resort for individual rights in this country, by a 5-4 majority (and over 4 scathing dissents, two of which were written by Republican appointees to the bench) sanctifies an artificial deadline over the most important civil right we possess - the right to vote and have our votes counted. Some day, when the desire to win this election subsides in your mind (and in the minds of the other GOP supporters who so aggressively tried to suppress the manual recounts in Southern Florida), you may come to understand the nature of the assault on liberty, and the injury inflicted, as a result of this effort by the GOP, and how offensive it has been to the rest of the country.
I truly think it is fair to say that the GOP, headed by their presidential candidate and with a decisive assist from the ideologically conservative US Supreme Court, martyred Al Gore -- Gore took a bullet for our country the other night when he conceded this election, and the GOP inflicted that bullet. And trust me when I say this -- I speak for almost every democrat I know and have spoken to about this -- we will NEVER forget and we will make this right in two years and then again in four.
The man who got the second most votes won this election, or so we are told. But we will never know for sure, because of the scorched earth legal strategy of suppressing a manual recount at all costs. Now it will take place, but it will be too late to make right any wrong, to remedy the injury, or to convince the country and the world that the outcome was fair or correct. And we are all diminished (and our democracy is diminished) by that.
Thanks Dubya - what's next on the agenda? |
