I don't need psychological help -- but it fills me with joy that you find my messages so irritating.
I see it like this - Gore's "loss" was simply that he left the game close enough that the GOP could steal it with the help of their friends on the USSC -- in essence, like a football game where it comes down to the last play, and a bad call by the replay referee hands it to the guy who really lost. Gore won the popular vote by a wider margin than anybody imagined possible on election night, he far exceeded what the GOP thought he would do in this election (if you don't believe that, visit the Electoral College 2000 message board in SI and see what the right wingers were predicting on Nov 6 through the evening on Nov 7 -- Hilary losing, Gore getting whomped, etc.). And he won the electoral college but for that little matter of ignoring 200,000 undervotes and overvotes concenttrated in the most heavily democratic parts of Florida, a majority of which were clearly voted for Gore, and which in any self respecting democracy in the 21st century should have been manually inspected and counted.
So, in essence, on the last play of this game, the referee on the field (FSC) called a touchdown for Gore instead of a turnover for Bush -- but on further review, the replay referee (USSC) reversed the call on the field, despite the fact that the replay ref should not have interfered with the call on the field (at least under conservative principles of federalism). What's worse, it turns out that the replay referee was not only dead wrong, but also was a close friend and supporter of the owner of the team that would have lost had the call on the field been allowed to stand, and reversed the decision because of that frienship, and not because the replay dictated that the call be reversed.
Now, if Gore had won Tennessee, Arkansas, New Hampshire or West Virginia, it would have been moot. Had he ridden more on Clinton's record instead of distancing himself from Clinton, even more so. Had Nader not been in the game, even more so. And so on -- but the bottom line is that despite all this, Gore STILL WON -- and the refs stole it from him. But it is sadly true that had Gore run a better campaign, the game would not have been close enough that Bush and his referee buddies could steal it on the last play. But to hear you guys crow about Bush's victory, well it's enough to make you sick. Make no mistake about it -- Gore defeated Bush by over 500,000 votes nationally, and by at least several thousand in Florida (not counting the 30,000+ votes for Gore that were DQ'd because of a fluke in the ballot design)
So if it annoys you that I look at it that way, good. What you are doing in calling me a sore loser is somewhat like calling the Baltimore Orioles sore losers when they were upset that Jeffrey Maier, a 10 year old kid, interfered with a catch of a third out in the 9th ining of an ALCS game 3 or 4 years ago, and the umpire missed the call, and awarded Jeter (I believe) a home run that should have been an out, costing Baltimore the game and probably the ALCS. It was a bad call and it turned them from winners into losers. should they have been happy about it? should they have reflected several months later "you know, we really did lose that thing, the kid's interference and the ump blowing the call were irrelevent"? Nope, not in my book. A BJ is a BJ every time. In the case of this election, it is even worse, because the ump (the Gang of 5 Conservative Ideologuess on the USSC) did it for political reasons, and knew exactly what they were doing, how BS it was, and they did it anyway, in order to hand their conservative compadres a victory in this election that they did not achieve on their own and surely did not deserve. And in doing so, they paves the way for Supreme Court retirements by 2 of the 5, and more Supreme Court appointments to the their liking. Which is to say, it was a corrupt and tainted decision, and history will see it that way. Not just a mistake but an act of malfeasance by a politically motivated group. And in this, you and the other right wingers revel in victory, as if it was a victory.
So I hope this one annoys you too - you are going to be hearing it a lot of this over the next 4 years as our next President proves to be everything those who voted against him were concerned about -- the second rate son of a second rate president, surrounded by a bunch of Ford/Reagan/Bush era retreads and right wing ideologues, with one or two showcase "moderates", diverse in race,sex and ethnicity, but completely non-diverse in how they govern. We who voted for thereal winner are pissed and have every right to be, and we will use the next four years to express our discontent with the election, the 5-4 presidential appointement, and the President it has given us.
MST |
