ALTERMAN: the 2000 coup decision GROWS IN DISGRACE. But Harold & Kumar loved Shrub

[UTUSN]

There was a recent article in The Daily Beast by ALTERMAN, sounding as outraged now as we all did in 2000, and I was getting worked up for the umpteenth time since 2000 (no, Asshole-SCALIA, I won't get over it), and "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo" was running in the background, a harmless movie correct?!1 Imagine my shock and disgust to have Shrub pop into the movie as pretty much the good guy, WTF. So here is the first piece, NEW, sounding like it is from 2000, and the 2nd piece from 2008 in a weird juxtaposition.

And BOIES's incompetence is even more infuriating. But back at the time, we knew that, and that the GORE team of a tired old Warren CHRISTOPHER was no match for the starved-for-power, stop-at-nothing Shrub team. What I have always admitted only to myself was that GORE's choices, including LIEBERMAN, show the flaws in GORE himself.



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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-04/bush-v-gore-decision-looks-even-more-disgraceful-10-years-later/?cid=topic:featured2

More Politics Bush V. Gore's Disgrace Deepens

by Eric Alterman

Passions are supposed to recede with time as wisdom and maturity, but the Supreme Court’s willingness to hand the presidency to George W. Bush looks even worse than it did 10 years ago, when passions flared and pundits feared for the future of the republic. The obvious problem with making Bush president was the fact of the Bush presidency, a catastrophe in so many directions at once that presidential historians argue today about whether Bush was the worst president in American history or merely the worst since Grant, Buchanan, or Johnson (Andrew, not Lyndon). ....

But even if Bush had been a great president, Bush v. Gore would have been a disgraceful decision. Consider this: To prevent a careful recount of the vote, the self-professed conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court ignored the decision of lower federal courts, which four times had rejected similar stay requests from the Bush campaign. As a result, the majority could not cite any real, germane Florida statutory law to support its contention that the counting must be ended immediately. Instead, the court chose to overturn a state court’s election laws as interpreted by that state’s supreme court on the basis of a legal theory that the justices simply made up on the spot: that different counting standards violate the equal protection and due process provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Had this theory had been applied across the board, it would have called into question almost every single state’s counting methods, but of course there was no danger of that. .....

...what the NORC researchers really discovered was the Gore legal team’s incredible incompetence.

Gore’s legal advisers chose, it turned out, pretty much the only counting method available that would have lost them the election. Instead of an inclusive recount of Florida’s vote—one that would have been most fair to Florida’s voters, Gore’s top lawyer, David Boies, asked the court to count “undervotes” only. Using that method, Bush did indeed outpoll Gore, and the court’s intervention did not ultimately make a difference. It turned out to be the perfect coda to a perfectly awful campaign.

But buried beneath this colossal error, as I’ve said over and over, was the inescapable fact that Gore was the genuine choice of a plurality of Florida’s voters as well as America’s. As the Associated Press reported in its examination of the NORC report, “In the review of all the state’s disputed ballots, Gore edged ahead under all six scenarios for counting all undervotes and overvotes statewide.” As I pointed out in my book What Liberal Media?, he beat Bush by almost every conceivable counting standard. Gore won under a strict-counting scenario and he won under a loose-counting scenario. He won if you counted “hanging chads” and he won if you counted “dimpled chads.” He won if you counted a dimpled chad only in the presence of another dimpled chad on the same ballot—the so-called Palm Beach standard. He even won if you counted only a fully punched chad. He won if you counted partially filled oval on an optical scan and he won if you counted only a fully filled optical scan. He won if you fairly counted the absentee ballots. No matter what, if everyone who legally voted in Florida had had a chance to see their vote counted, then Al Gore not George W. Bush, was elected president. ....




http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/04/george_w_bush.html

How George W. Bush Became Hollywood's Eccentric Uncle

4/24/08

.... The Times' Dennis Lim refers to Bush's depiction in this week's stoner comedy Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantánamo Bay as "arguably the most sympathetic movie portrayal of him to date" — but apparently he hasn't read the widely leaked early draft of the screenplay to Oliver Stone's biopic. Both portrayals mostly bypass direct criticism of the president, substituting bemusement and — dare we say it? — affection. He's not a bad guy, just an amiable buffoon — a figure to poke fun at, like an eccentric uncle, but not to revile.

It's admirable, in a way, that at his lowest point — with his popularity in the cellar and his political influence in the toilet — pop culture is willing to cut George W. Bush some slack. It's also disheartening that the leader of the free world is so unimportant that even self-righteous Hollywood blowhards can't be bothered to get angry at him.

In Harold & Kumar, the titular heroes — on the run from a rabid Homeland Security official played by Rob Corddry — parachute into Bush's Crawford, Texas, office, only to be secreted away by the president in his guesthouse. There — surrounded by bikini posters, dartboards, and a sweet jukebox — the prez smokes up with our heroes and laughs about the ordeal they've been through. The movie portrays Bush as a genial fuckup — "Shit, it's Cheney!" he says. "That guy scares the crap out of me" — who defends his own policies with a shrug and a wink. And it's Bush who delivers the closest H&K comes to a political message: "You don't need to believe in your government to be a good American. You just have to believe in your country." ....

...the illusion that the guy at the top does, after all, share our sensibilities. Maybe all that's gone wrong with his presidency isn't truly his fault — it's the fault of the jerks and dumbasses he has working for him. (In an already-infamous H&K scene, Rob Corddry's Homeland Security chief wipes his butt with the Bill of Rights.) We can't help but think that the real George W. Bush can't be all that upset by this version of him, given the alternatives. We can imagine the president who has long taken advantage of those who misunderestimate him watching Harold & Kumar, laughing heartily — and giving a satisfied nod. ....

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[aquart]

1. How come they win with their flaws and we lose with ours?

[budkin]

5. Because more corporations and money are on their side... that's it

[Samantha]

2. It was not Gore's legal team's incompetence that ruled out a statewide recount

There was no provision in the election laws of the state constitution that provided that alternative. Gore's team simply followed the law at that time outlined in the Constitution. The only way a recount of the whole state could be effected was either by (1) permission of the Governor (and we do all remember who that as at the time) or (2) by court order. It was the court order eventually issued by the Florida Supreme Court that the US Supreme Court UNCONSTITUTIONALLY stopped. The U.S. Constitution delegates the rights to determine their own election laws to the States themselves, requiring each to outline those laws in the State Constitution.

What was truly the show-stopper in that whole matter has never been openly discussed anywhere that I have heard.

Two years before election 2000, Florida had an election lawsuit challenging a mayoral race. As a result of that lawsuit, the declared winner was found not to have won after all, but the challenger had in fact prevailed. The election was overturned as a result of the lawsuit.

As a result of that election embarrassment, the State Constitution was amended to outline steps to challenge the results of an election. That is when the protest/contest provisions were wrapped into the Florida election laws. Gore's team followed that precisely as outlined. The provisions that the Bush* team touted were the old, outdated provisions which had been superseded by the new provisions. It is beyond belief to say this, but the fact of the matter is that when the new provisions were inserted into the text of the Constitution, the old text was not deleted. In effect, a clerical error -- the failure to delete that old text -- is what enabled the Bush* team to appear to be following "the law." That is the portion of the law the Bush* team chronically quoted. Mind-boggling, really.

I do agree that Gore's choice of Lieberman was unappealing (Finegold was on the short list as well), but it was Bill Clinton who convinced Gore to pick Lieberman. Lieberman, Clinton argued, could help Gore carry Florida by attracting the Jewish vote, and a win in that state might be the necessary one to help Gore win a narrow over Bush*.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Very informative, thanks

So it was the Florida judiciary that inadvertently made "a clerical error" that ultimately led to Bush v. Gore.

Interesting.

[Samantha]

6. No, it was the Florida legislature which writes the constitution

So it gets the "credit" for the "clerical error." I found the most interesting part to be there was no public mention of this fact during the election debacle.

[pnorman]

4. Thanks for that detailed analysis!

I'll study it carefully later!

[Samantha]

8. The more time that lapses between the days of that debacle

and the "now", the more the facts tend to get obliterated. I think it is very important to keep clearly on the record the exact unfolding of what happened when so that people studying the issue in the future learn the truth of the matter. Gore did an amazing job in light of the obstacles in front of him. I don't like to see that credit taken from him.

Another issue which was kept on the front burner during that fight in the aftermath of the Florida vote was the Legislature's chronic threat that it didn't matter how the recount vote turned out, even if Gore were to prevail, it was within the Legislature's power to still send a Republican slate of electors' votes to the Electoral College. Not true. The legislature could not have, by terms outlined in the U.S. Constitution, changed the law after the election before the vote of the Electoral College. It could have changed the law, but by the provisions clearly outlined in the U.S. Constitution, the new law could not go into effect until the NEXT election. In other words, the Florida legislature was prohibited from changing the rules in the middle of the current game to achieve its preferred outcome. David Bois discussed that in his book Courting Justice .

[malaise]

7. Must read - K& R n/t

[KoKo]

9. I wonder why Eric is writing this article? What's on his mind

that he would bring this up now? :shrug:

[StatGirl]

12. Probably just that it's the 10th anniversary of the decision (NT)

[SidDithers]

10. "Kumar" works for Obama...

I doubt he loved Shrub.

Sid

[Hamlette]

11. The only good thing to come out of that decision

and it is not enough to even the score by a long shot

But Scalia will be remembered throughout history as the asshole behind that horrid decision.

Especially in light of his "get over it" comment.