I despise Maureen Dowd about as much as I despise Jeff Jacoby, maybe
even more when I consider how much broader her reach is. She’s
consistently in the top 10 of the NYT’s top emailed articles, which
indicates that there must be a large army of self-righteous “liberals”
out there knee-jerking their way into political insignificance.
Some facts here: George W. Bush won the 2000 election. The Supreme Court did not “appoint” him. And the voter recount in Florida probably would have resulted in a Bush victory anyway.
Some opinions too: I do not like nor respect Bush v. Gore. I do think the coincidence of Gov. Jeb Bush and the purging of voter roles in Florida are anything but. Yadda yadda yadda.
But what is the point of repeating ad nauseum the cry of “We wuz cheated”? Is it, perhaps, that we still haven’t come up with anything more interesting to say?
Gene,
I was tempted to reply to your post at length, but decided that I will get fired from my job. Like you, i despise both Jacoby and Dowd which is why I dont bother reading them. Since I did not read her article, I can’t in good faith defend her (nor would i want to), but I will, however, defend the right to bring up Florida and the process that led to Bush’s ascendancy to the White house.
I think America often suffers from collective amnesia, pretending things like Florida did not happen; that the illegal purging of black voters was accidental; that asking people for identification instead of having them file voter affidavits, as the law requires, is something that occured by happenstance, etc., etc.
The point of bringing this up, at least for me, is not to revel in a counterfactual Gore presidency. It is to remind voters, and the media, to be more vigilant this time and not to let that happen again. It why I am gratified to see that CNN is actually tring to get a list of the ineligible voters for the upcoming elections. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/28/fla.vote/
Gore winning the popular vote does mean more than just a symbolic victory. it also indicates that the winner has no popular mandate. off the top of my head, i think the other presidents who lost the popular vote to their opponent went on to only serve one term — J.Q. Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison — because they lacked legitimacy. Bush was in the same trajectory before Sept. 11 turned him into a war president. So let us not simply cast aside the significance of having half a million less votes than your opponent.
Even if the media studies show that Bush would have won, wouldn;t it have been better to count the votes? after all, it was the same media who told us that Bush was leading by 4 or 5 percentage points and was going to win in a landslide. I dont have much faith in the predictive value of media studies.
As for Bush v. Gore, of course it was a horrible decision, no matter how you look at it. Even it’s fiercest defenders, such as Charles Fried, could not come up with a reasoned defense for it. While I understand Roe v. Wade, etc. was an important decision, it did not decide any elections. That’s a distinction that cannot be overlooked, we shouldn’t exagerrate our comparisons here. The biggest problem with Bush v. Gore was Scalia’s decision to stop the recount arguing that Bush faced a greater irreparable harm than Gore. Pure political oppurtunism.
Gene, you seem to have a dark view of liberalism. I think these labels are simply not that helpful. You cite a survey that says that more people are proud to say they are conservative than are liberal. However, another poll shows that more people are registered as democrat than are republican. I dont think either side is winning or has won. republicans may be winning the fiscal battle, cutting taxes and deregulatins shit, but it seems to me that democrats are winning on the social front. america is a 50/50 nation and will be for awhile. the 2000 election proved it and the 2004 election will reaffirm that. nobody’s getting more than 51% of the vote, unless of course you run. iwill vote for you.
I agree and concede that keeping the pressure on is important; however, I think “we” need to be clear what the point is. Too many people live in West Wing (the TV show) fantasy-land. Focusing on the negative (Bush sucks) doesn’t help us figure out what it is “we” want to do if we did come back to power.
No, labels aren’t helpful; to some extent, that’s my point. If “liberal” is unhelpful, “Democrat” even less so. I’d rather look at the interests out there to see where they align and where alliances can be broken and reshaped. You do seem to agree with me that libertarianism is on the rise (smaller government all around) even if Ashcroft would have otherwise. So if the Democrats win back the White House in November, I don’t foresee a turnaround on “social justice” (a/k/a redistribution) issues, because that’s not the current trend no matter what the socialist hippies might otherwise wish. And THOSE are the “liberals” I think most need the wake-up call to get with the times and find a new tune for the old lyrics.
Thanks for the endorsement! 😉