The infallible Diebold electronic voting machine was developed.

And now for the sequel: Florida and Michigan, 2008.

Brought to you by Howard Dean and the DNC.

... in Florida, Ohio, any state.

period.

had no way of knowing what the eventual outcome of the primaries would be at the time Florida and Michigan were sanctioned, because the sanctions occurred before any primary votes were cast. Any attempt to analogize the present situation with Bush v. Gore fails because there was no particular outcome to assure by meddling. Just say no to revisionism.

Mr. Kamiya writes "The Gore team decided not to ask for a statewide manual recount" and in so doing shows that he is not well informed on what happened in Florida in 2000.

Florida law (at least at that time) made no provision for asking for statewide manual recounts. None. The provision of the law required that recount requests be made county by county and that a sampling of ballots be taken to determine whether or not a recount was likely to alter the vote totals significantly. That's why the Gore team chose the counties that it did.

Further, the Gore team did in fact propose that there be a statewide recount of all ballots but given that the state law didn't provide for such a thing, it would have required the Bush campaign's agreement (which was not something that the Bush campaign was about to provide.)

Anyway, other than the fundamental error about asking for statewide recounts that were not available (and hence were not asked for but which the Florida State Supreme Court eventually ordered), the article/review isn't entirely awful. But that glaring error? Come on! There has been plenty of time to get this info right.

the Democratic Party spends the next eight years fighting for voting reform at the state & local level, and using every parliamentary and strategic tactic available to present a unified, principled alternative to the Bush administration.

Because they learned something from the 2000 election.

Right?

This is a lie; it is such a glaring, stupid, uninformed, bogus, unfounded charge that it almost doesn't desrve a response.

So, I'll bite: Dear Mr. Kamiya, What did you mean by "bought-and-paid for?" That there wer bribes paid? That there was a financial benefit to any member of the Court that supported the Florida Secretary of State's decision? Let's see; the Supreme Court Justices never run for election, they don't solicit campaign funding, and they don't establish Presidential or Judicial libraries in Arkansas. They don't operate lavish foundations with offices in Manhattan.

So what did you mean by "bought-and-paid-for"? Did you mean that Justices appointed by Republicans are somehow all "bought and paid for"? That doesn't seem to work for Justices Stevens (appointed by President Ford, whose Chief of Staff was one Richard Cheney) or Justice Souter (appointed by President George H.W. Bush), does it?

I think, therefore, I've figured it out. What you really meant by "bought-and-paid-for" was nothing in particular, other than a standard, unimaginative slur. A libel, that you were compelled to write by the blinding hatred of President Bush that has addled you for more than seven years.

Therapy, I am guessing, will help you. Someday.

Couldn't even read the article. It's too bad, because I sure do love Laura Dern.

And now for the sequel: Florida and Michigan, 2008.

Brought to you by Howard Dean and the DNC.

And don't forget scum Barack Dukakis who is fighting as hard as Scum W. Bush did in 2000 to guarantee voters from those states do not have their votes counted.

It was widely reported at the time of the Supreme Court decision that both Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia had close family members on the staff of the George W. Bush campaign. These Justices should have recused themselves from this case by any standard of judicial impartiality. They did not. I believe there is a very good case for both of them to be impeached based upon this decision (known to many as the Gore Exception). If there is a majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress and a Democrat in the White House to appoint reasonable replacements come 2009, impeachment of these two justices should be the first order of business.

Gore did not even carry his own state, so I am glad he lost. Only moronic candidates for president don't carry their own state.

Wow. Not even a bought-and-paid-for partisan like Elephant is willing to defend the five Gop "justices" whose ridiculous, wholly-partisan decision destroyed 200 years of court legitimacy. They will long be remembered as the true authors of the overthrow of our formerly-cherished Constitution by Bush-Cheney and the fall of the American republic; and their actions deserve infamy.

Good writing and reporting, Mr. Kamiya.

There is no conceivable circumstance under which Hillary Clinton would concede the nomination. By consistently moving goal posts and changing positions, there is a nonzero probability that she might win the nomination, even though Obama (I almost said Gore) is the presumptive nominee. One effect of this intransigence is that Obama and Clinton supporters are increasingly hardened against each other's candidate.

But, if Clinton's stop-at-nothing strategy works, and she is the nominee, (or if there is a unity ticket, which seems less likely) then she will ensure in closely contested states that her campaign will do unto the Republicans that the Republicans did unto the Democrats in 2000. (That can be taken in many ways.)

Have a Caligula class meltdown and once again fight a GOP retard to a tie. Seriously, if you can't pimp slap the GOP this time around and piss on them as they're bleeding on the sidewalk then you need to give up and stop having a party. I only hope He Who is Obama is up for it. Otherwise, and I'm not kidding, the Democrats will be finished as a national party and you will have a one party government for a half century.

Gore lost because he'd rather be righteous than right.

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that the Supremes had stopped the recount (just as when I heard JFK was dead, MLK was dead, John was dead, and planes had crashed into the WTC). I turned to my not-yet wife and said, "They're going to reverse the Florida Supreme Court. They can't do that!" And I started yelling at the radio. If I ever need to conjure up a sense of impotent rage, I will think of that moment.

I have spent most of my professional career working with judges. I've seen good ones, bad ones, less scrupulous ones, more scrupulous ones. I have never seen any court do anything as intellectually and morally corrupt as Bush v. Gore. And when Scalia tells me to "Get over it" -- well, I look forward to dancing on his grave chanting, "Get over this, lardass."