I won't bother to shred your entire post, Alex, but I will address two things you seem to have mis-interpreted.Originally posted by Alex H@19 August 2004 - 21:06
Two of the Florida court judges had conflicts of interest, i.e. they or their wives had worked for the Republican party.
The rightwing Justice Scalia even said:
"The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does, in my view, threaten irreparable harm to petitioner (i.e. Bush), and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."
1) The Florida Supreme Court did all that it could to hand the state of Florida to Gore; apart from their decision being an egregious mis-reading of existing law, how exactly does this Republican "conflict" come into play?
That their incorrect vote could have been more one-sided would not have made it less wrong; as far as the Florida court's decision went, they carried the day for the Dems-what difference would these two Republicans have made?
2) What Justice Scalia actually meant was this:
That had the questionable votes been counted (as they eventually were, BTW), the fact that at least as many of them would have counted for Bush as for Gore would have had the effect of casting doubt on the petitioner's (Bush) victory, owing to their dubious status.
Scalia rather obviously felt he was choosing by far the lesser of two evils; he was most emphatically not attempting to marginalize Bush's victory.
Sorry.
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