Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review Nov. 29, 2000 / 2 Kislev, 5761

Joseph Perkins

Perkins
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

Election 2000 racks up casualties


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION remains in doubt, notwithstanding the anything-but-impartial ruling Nov. 21 by the Florida Supreme Court (whose members are all Democrat appointees, including the chief justice, a former Clinton-Gore fund-raiser).

But there is no doubt that, in the wake of this electoral debacle, certain institutions and principles in this country have suffered irreparable damage. Among them:

  • The legal profession. Lawyers were held in low repute by most Americans even before this presidential election. Now they will be absolutely reviled.

    Indeed, no sooner had the polls closed in Florida than the pro-Democrat American Bar Association sent out an e-mail to its membership asking for 500 volunteers to go to Florida to help the Gore campaign use every legal maneuver possible to overturn the result of the Election Day vote tally and the machine recount.

    So now it's the lawyers, rather than Florida voters, who will determine the winner of the state's 25 electoral votes.

  • The media. The corrupting influence that the media has on the electoral process has been made abundantly clear during this election.

    Indeed, the networks were guilty of the most egregious offense by prematurely, and incorrectly, projecting Gore as the winner in Florida before the polls had closed in the Sunshine State.

    In so doing, they almost certainly depressed Republican votes, as the party faithful probably felt no reason to go to the polls since a Florida defeat meant that George W. Bush would not be elected.

    Of course, the networks couldn't care less if their premature call dampened the Republican turnout. But they are still kicking themselves for subsequently declaring Bush the winner in Florida and, then, taking back that projection.

    "You are probably furious with us, and I don't blame you," CBS news anchor Dan Rather told his viewers.

    Yet, Rather's colleagues in network news continue their efforts to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

    For instance, ABC News has had staff members calling Republican electors, asking them if they might consider changing their vote from Bush to Gore. Mary Hergert, one of Colorado's eight electors, says that the calls sound more like advocacy than journalistic inquiry.

    Indeed, by putting in play this cockeyed notion that some Bush electors might actually defect, Gore loyalists in the news media hope to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  • The state of Florida. The nation's fourth most-populous state has made the United States the laughing stock of the world.

    How dare the United States presume to oversee elections in other countries, to adjudge whether another country's leaders have been freely and fairly elected, when Florida has been unable to declare a winner of its electoral votes after two weeks and multiple vote counts.

    And there is not one official in Florida having anything to do with the election, with the recounts, who doesn't have an obvious conflict of interest.

    The secretary of state was a delegate to the Republican National Convention (as the national news media have pointed out at every opportunity). The attorney general was the state chair of the Gore-Lieberman campaign (a fact that, for some reason, has gone largely unmentioned).

    Every lower court judge in Florida that has ruled on some aspect of the vote count and recount is a Democrat appointee. And, again, every member of the state's Supreme Court is a card-carrying Democrat. Yet, the only state official who has done the right thing and recused himself from making decisions that might influence the outcome of the Florida vote is Gov. Jeb Bush.

  • The 14th Amendment. The Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws. County election officials in Florida, with the blessing this week of the state's high court, have turned this principle on its head.

    Indeed, by allowing Democrat officials to select four overwhelmingly Democratic counties (out of Florida's 67) to conduct a hand recount, the state of Florida has declared that certain of its residents, its voters, enjoy more-than-equal protection of the laws.

    This is why the outcome of the Florida vote count should be taken out of the hands of obviously partisan county election officials, out of the hands of obviously biased state judges and justices (most of whom play an active part in Democrat party politics), and into the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

For when state officials or state jurists abrogate the U.S. Constitution as they surely have in Florida, it is imperative that the nation's highest court intervene.



JWR periodic contributor Joseph Perkins is San Diego Union-Tribune columnist and a television commentator. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

11/01/00: Buying bridges and believing polls
10/26/00: Undecided? Before voting, make sure you answer these questions
10/20/00: No losers with Bush tax plan
09/06/00: Global warming?
08/23/00: Posh bashes by 'party of the people'
08/01/00: Liberal media spinning convention
05/18/00: The biggest threat to children
05/11/00: AlGore should keep silent if he doesn't have the facts
04/28/00: The people won't forget
03/24/00: You don't need to be paranoid to be wary of the census
03/24/00: Gotcha! Treasury Dept. spills the beans about Bubba's bull
03/16/00: Al Gore's glaring hypocrisy
03/07/00: John McCain is a fraud
02/17/00: The only thing that will rein in NFL criminals is negative public opinion
01/27/00: Linking marriage and the income gap
01/12/00: Black blind obedience
12/21/99: Tripp's courage was punished
12/09/99: Politics gets in the way of food
12/02/99: Washington isn't speaking English
10/14/99: Using sexual harassment as a weapon
10/04/99: What about victims' rights?
09/17/99: Feel like you're being watched?
09/02/99: Our air traffic system is out of control
08/26/99: We need another Manhattan Project
08/13/99: Tempest in the PETA pot
08/05/99: Utilizing junk science for big payoffs

©1999, NEA