From the Fridge Magnet Dept.
(just someone's rendition of what Shrub may have scribbled on his scrap paper.) (Now to find Kerry's scribblings!) http://www.thetalentshow.org/images/bush_rules_1.jpg
From the No Duh Dept:
1. Guantanamo has 'failed to prevent terror attacks'
"Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who retired last June after 20 years in military intelligence, says that President George W Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have 'wildly exaggerated' their intelligence value. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1318702,00.html
2. How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence
From the Good Read Dept:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_26_digbysblog_archive.html#109632193732053023
Digby goes into quite a bit of detail about the shenanigans in Florida, dredging up stuff I'd forgotten. Like how the initial call for inquiries emanated from Republicans charging that the major networks were in cahoots with the Dems, and how same Republicans became incensed that anyone dared accuse them of being in cahoots with FAUX.
According to the VF article, the fix was in from the beginning (this is news?), a decision waiting for a rationale. Both the VF article and Rosen's article explain why it may just be that we'll see another repeat because of the 2000 decision.
The Big Fix
Jeffrey Rosen writes in TNR today:
It's November 2, and the presidential election looks close in Ohio. An army of lawyers are dispatched by the Bush and Kerry campaigns to scour all 11,614 precincts in the state for any hint of voting irregularities. Within hours, both sides have filed competing suits in state courts challenging the standards for counting provisional, absentee, and military ballots, as well as for the use of different voting machines. Within days, Laurence Tribe and James Baker are filing petitions to the Supreme Court, arguing that Bush v. Gore--the case that decided the 2000 election--compels the justices to intervene. The justices, who once confidently predicted that Bush v. Gore would have no effect on future elections, are horrified. Even the Bush v. Gore dissenters are shocked at the mess the decision has created. After all, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Bush v. Gore a "one-of-a-kind case" as recently as February 2003 in a speech to San Diego law students, adding optimistically, "I doubt it will ever be cited as precedent by the court on anything."
[...]
Unfortunately, the hopes that Bush v. Gore would fade from memory like an embarrassing dinner guest have proved to be wildly mistaken. And, if the election is close, the nightmare scenario described above seems all too likely to come to pass. During the four years since Bush v. Gore, the case has emboldened political candidates to file a tangle of litigation challenging election procedures in federal and state races--from the recall of Governor Gray Davis in California to the replacement of Senator Robert Torricelli in New Jersey. Moreover, in response to the legalization of politics that has followed Bush v. Gore, Democratic and Republican legal swat teams have been assembled to challenge the results of the 2004 presidential election if the vote in any state proves close enough to provide the margin of victory in the electoral college. And, even if the presidential election is not close, Bush v. Gore will continue to haunt congressional and local elections in November and beyond. "You could have dozens or even hundreds of cases filed on the Wednesday morning after the election," says Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School. "Given the litigation opportunities in Bush v. Gore, you could have real, real uncertainty for many weeks and months, not only about national elections but about local elections. And it's likely to get worse."
If this came from anyone but Rosen I would think it was another of those Greenfield-esque parlor games in which they sit around on CNN for hours at a time in stultifying discussion of bizarre election scenarios that will never happen. But we'd be fools to ignore the fact that Bush vs Gore is a cancer that has the potential to metastisize very rapidly if this election is as close as we expect it to be.
If you haven't had a chance to read the fascinating in-depth article in Vanity Fair this month about the Florida debacle in 2000, here are the (pdf) links to it--- Part one and Part two. It opens with a conversation between two of the Supreme court clerks who seem to have had the exact same opinion that I forcefully espoused at a dinner party during the recount drama (as I imagine many others did throughout the country.)
"one of the lessons of 1964 that conservatives learned was that it was more important for voters to feel like they were informed than to actually be informed. conservatives now have several places where they can learn this lesson several times a year."
-- ac, the Politics list
