the U.S. Supreme Court also issued an order vacating the Florida Supreme Court’s order on the recounts and extended time schedule, slapping the state court for its unclear and questionable verdict.
Gore's Swan Song: Hail to the Cheat!
Dan Frisa
Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000
There’s been an awful lot of discussion these past months about the legacy of Bill Clinton, as the lame duck president struggles mightily in a futile attempt to leave something – anything – positive to be remembered by, to no avail of course, given his sordid, cynical and superficial tenure in office.
As the walls are closing ever in on Al Gore, his legacy as a candidate for president is nearly complete and is just as sorry as that of his mentor because he, too, shares so much of the same disturbing lack of character.
Here, then, is a rendition of Junior Gore’s Swan Song, "Hail to the Cheat" – a litany of the outright lies, falsehoods, and half-truths employed by Gore’s Goons to try to steal the election over the course of the past four weeks, including – for the first time in U.S. history – an attempt to overturn an election for president.
• Butterfly Ballot Claims
Even before polls closed on election night in Florida, Gore-paid telemarketers made thousands of phone calls to Palm Beach Democrats suggesting and encouraging ‘complaints’ of voter confusion. Remember the ‘outrage’ claimed about ‘inadvertent’ votes for Pat Buchanan? This included both direct and reverse claims of racism: 1) blacks would never vote for Buchanan (except that his running mate was, in fact, black, and 2) Jewish voters would never vote for Buchanan; after all, they claimed, he’s an anti-Semite!
This was the opening diversion employed by Gore to in essence stop the clock, politically, as left-wing partisans in the mainstream media took up this specious charge. Then, after several days, a lawsuit was filed by several "average" Palm Beach residents, we were informed.
As reported here at that time, however, this was an outright lie, because the chief and most visible plaintiff was one Andre Fladell, a longtime Democratic Party hack and dirty-trickster who took direction from the Gore campaign, while Gore "officially" denied knowledge of this legal action.
Of course, even the Florida Supreme Court saw the fallacy in this case and has now dismissed it emphatically, saying that the butterfly ballot was completely legal. But this smoke screen served its purpose by attracting massive public attention early on, while keeping focus away from the real goal: stalling for time without bringing up a statewide issue that would necessitate raising claims throughout Florida, thus allowing Gore to maintain focus exclusively on Democrat-rich Palm Beach County.
• Manual Recounts Begin
Next, Gore subtly switched his focus to demands for a manual recount in Palm Beach, initially clinging to the butterfly ballot as the ostensible justification.
With the deck stacked full of Democrats on the Palm Beach canvassing board, this was an easy task and they promptly complied. After an initial 1 percent sample was reviewed, the board only identified 19 additional votes for Gore, raising the specter that a manual recount might not be justified. So Gore applied extreme political pressure even after the board hesitated and requested advice from the secretary of state and, later, from the attorney general.
Rejecting the judgment of autonomous local officials, Gore threatened court action to compel a manual recount, but the board fell into line and agreed to so proceed.
As the count began, Gore was furious that more votes for him were not being recorded, so – again – he went into court to compel a liberal standard so as to provide for the virtual manufacture of Gore votes by including ballots containing the now-famous dimpled chad in his tally. This very procedure had not been allowed, per local written policy, for more than a decade.
Florida Circuit Judge Jorge LaBarga held a hearing and ruled that the local board could not be forced to adopt such a strict, set standard and ordered that the intent of the voter should be ascertained by the totality of the circumstances inherent in each individual ballot.
• Attack on Secretary of State Katherine Harris
At this same time, the deadline required by Florida law was looming on Tuesday, Nov. 14, by which time certified results were due to be reported to the secretary of state in her capacity as chair of the Election Canvassing Commission. This is when initial attacks on Ms. Harris first began as she indicated her intent to enforce the law she was required to uphold, despite claims by Gore that the manual recounts were not likely to be completed in time.
So, Gore filed another lawsuit to compel Harris to accept late counts beyond the deadline. Harris issued criteria to each of the state’s 67 county election boards and soon after also requested written reasons for her consideration of late results, despite Florida law to the contrary.
This case was brought before Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, a Democrat, who ruled in favor of Harris, saying she did not abuse her discretion as secretary of state.
Gore then appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which amazingly issued an order on its own without even being requested to do so by Gore, prohibiting Harris from certifying the final results, including the overseas military ballots, on Saturday, Nov. 18, pursuant to the election law of the state.
• Military Absentee Ballots
Meanwhile, on Friday, Nov. 17, Gore lawyers were dispatched throughout Florida to challenge every single military absentee ballot to prevent U.S. service personnel from casting their votes! And they were able to intimidate local canvassing boards and did in fact get nearly 1,000 of these ballots disqualified!
• Florida Supreme Court Hearing
The next week brought the "Kangaroo Court" hearing at the Florida Supreme Court before the seven-member panel, all appointed by Democrats. In a stunning display of political bias and partisanship, the jurists were barely able to contain their overt support for Gore as well as their disdain for the Bush team.
It was at this hearing that Gore lawyer David Boies directly lied to the court about an Illinois case, Pullen v. Mulligan, incorrectly asserting that the case sanctioned the counting of dimpled ballots, while the exact opposite was true. The state trial court, by ruling of Judge Bartha, ruled that dimpled ballots were not valid indicators of voter intent. Here, Boies also submitted a proffer from statistician Hengarten, who was later destroyed by Bush lawyer Phil Beck on this same point before Judge Sauls, purposely misstating the layout of ballots not even reviewed.
Not surprisingly, the court ordered a manual recount, changed state law by extending statutory deadlines, and mandated that Secretary of State Harris, who they said abused her discretion by upholding state law, must accept new certified results at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 26.
• Manual Recounts – and Lawsuits – Continue
During this time, both Broward and Miami-Dade counties took up the manual count issue.
Miami-Dade conducted its initial 1 percent hand count and determined that Gore received just 6 additional votes. They therefore decided that a further manual count of the entire county was not warranted and the local canvassing board so voted.
Broward County decided to go forward with a full hand count, did so, and, for the first time in Florida state electoral history, began "counting" anything, everything, and nothing – up to and including stray marks and feelings – as votes for Gore, which resulted in some 500-odd more added to his total.
Gore filed yet another lawsuit against Miami-Dade County to compel a hand count. The board eventually succumbed to Gore’s blatant political pressure, relented, and began to count. It was at this time that the local canvassing board retreated from public view, intending to conduct its decisions on individual ballots in secret, out of view of both the public and press, contrary to its previous public sessions for this purpose.
This Soviet-like tactic was met with vociferous, though entirely peaceful, protest by Republican observers inside the county building, supported by hundreds of other concerned Americans outside. It was at this time that former Sen. Bob Dole and other prominent Republican officials arrived to observe the counting process and all else that transpired.
The Miami-Dade Democrat-dominated local canvassing board then held a public session and voted not to continue with hand counts.
Of course, Gore took them to court in an attempt to force the board to proceed.
Sen. Bob Kerry, D-Neb., outrageously condemned U.S. military personnel for not "taking more care" in filling out their absentee ballots.
Sen. Kerry also observed the counting process in Broward County and confided that he could not see what, on the hand-counted ballots, could possibly indicate a vote for anyone for president on numerous ballots he examined.
Also during this time frame, the Palm Beach local canvassing board continued its review of ballots and applied a more rational and proper approach, after again having been taken to court by Gore, who was unhappy that not more votes had been "found" for him.
Judge LaBarga ruled yet again that the board should use the standards they had been correctly applying, defeating Gore’s attempt to impose unheard-of improperly "loose" standards for divining voters’ intent.
Palm Beach never completed its hand count by the new deadline, thus, solely as a result of having wasted time in court to answer Gore’s own legal challenges to its efforts, had only its previously certified election results officially certified by the state Election Canvassing Commission.
Broward submitted its new, increased tally for Gore, and Miami-Dade submitted its totals, largely the same as before, to the state commission.
On Sunday, Nov. 26, at 5 p.m., the Florida Election Canvassing Board officially certified George W. Bush as the winner of the state’s 25 electoral votes and Florida Governor Jeb Bush transmitted the necessary Certificate of Ascertainment to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., as required by law.
Gore, surprise, surprise, filed another lawsuit, this time against Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau counties, to compel "more thorough" manual hand counts, because they said, every vote must be counted, even after this third count.
Gore at this time filed an interlocutory, or interim, appeal to the Florida Supreme Court requesting an order compelling that hand counts begin even before the trial was conducted. The high court rejected this Gore move.
It was this case that was so decisively decided by Judge N. Sanders Sauls yesterday, dealing a major defeat to Gore on both the facts and the law.
Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court also issued an order vacating the Florida Supreme Court’s order on the recounts and extended time schedule, slapping the state court for its unclear and questionable verdict.
Gore filed an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court, seeking to overturn Judge Sauls’ decision, which will be heard this Thursday at 10:00 a.m.
Now, there has also been a lawsuit filed by a close Gore ally, who spent $50,000 on ads attacking GOP vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney, to throw out the absentee ballot votes of 15,000 citizens in Seminole County. There has been close coordination with the Gore campaign every step of the way in this case, despite Gore’s lies about any knowledge of this legal action.
A similar case was filed by Gore operatives in Martin County to throw out the absentee ballot votes of 10,000 Floridians. Here, too, Gore has denied any involvement or contact.
As a result of all of this uncertainty initiated by Gore, the Florida Legislature began considering the necessity of acting to protect the state's electoral votes, which could be in jeopardy, and thereby prevent the state from being entirely disenfranchised in the Electoral College.
Gore and his accomplice Lieberman unleashed the harshest, most untruthful rhetoric against Florida’s legislators, who were forced into action by Gore’s own reckless conduct.
Gore and his Goons have also, throughout this entire period, willingly unleashed a relentless torrent of invective and lies against President-elect Bush and Republicans, accusing them of wanting to prevent the counting of votes!
This, from those (Gore & Co.) who denied 1,000 U.S. service personnel from voting. This, from those (Gore & Co.) who seek to throw out 25,000 votes of Floridians in Seminole and Martin counties.
This, from those (Gore & Co.) who have brought dozens of lawsuits against local canvassing boards, all composed either entirely or mostly of Democrats.
This, from those (Gore & Co.) who implied that somehow Republicans were responsible for the "confusing" butterfly ballot, despite the fact that the GOP had nothing whatever to do with the design of the ballot.
There you have it, in brief summary, the sorry legacy of Junior Gore.
That is why his swan song is appropriately titled: "Hail To The Cheat!" – after all, he deserves it!
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E-mail Dan: danfrisa@newsmax.com. |
