Reply #4: Too little, too late

[Senior citizen]

Gore: "....even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws...."

Oh yeah? The Supreme Court had never before made a ruling that neither followed nor set precedent, nor had they ever interpreted Civil Rights that way--the only belief possible that could explain the acceptance of the SCOTUS decision is that we are a nation of political dirty tricks, not of laws.

Gore: "I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law...."

Did the riot by Repuke senators to stop the recount look like respect for the rule of law? When somebody is installed in defiance of the rule of law, and in defiance of democratic principles, they cannot be expected to uphold either.

When the electoral votes were counted, The Black Congressional Caucus stood up en masse to protest the counting of the fraudulent Florida votes. Only one other person stood with them, Rep. Bob Filner, D., CA. of San Diego. The BCC needed only a single Senator to sign their petition in order to proceed with their protest. There was not a single black Senator in Congress. There was not a single white Senator, Dem or Rep, M or F, with the balls to sign. As I recall, Gore, who presided over the count, was a Senator. Any belief in the rule of law would have caused a sane person to sign.

I do appreciate that Gore is speaking out long after the damage has been done. That's better than never. I'm voting for Kerry, not Nader, that is, voting against my conscience just to help get Bush out, but I live in California, where Gore carried the electoral vote and the Nader vote was not responsible for Bush getting in, and when I watched Gore on C-SPAN I was damned proud of having voted for Nader.

(I also do not believe that the Nader vote was responsible for the Bush victory anywhere. There were too many purges, uncounted votes, and BBV skullduggery for the Nader vote to have changed anything. The Florida vote, as I recall, was pledged to Bush no matter which way the popular vote went. Another reason to get rid of the electoral college.)