Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

That is a sort of irony don't you think? When you consider how many people from however many different factions vilify President Bush. . .

I agree with the irony ... as far as the 'vilify' I honestly try not hate him even though I hate what he has done to this country.

I love my country and spent the better part of my life in service to her ... GW has done more harm to this country in his short stint as President than was done in the last world war. Our standing in the rest of the world is at an all time low and the threats are even greater than they were prior to 9/11. Our personal liberties are under attack at every level and just about ALL of this can be laid at GW's feet (it's because of his policies).

SO - yes it is ironic, a person with his qualifications (or) lack of qualifications was shoehorned into his first term and elected to his second term as the lesser of two evils.

Originally Posted by 5.56X45mm

Dubbya was re-elected by the people. Not all the people, but over 50% of the people.

Well, not the first time. The first time he had less than 50% of the people's votes.

Originally Posted by major liability

Well, not the first time. The first time he had less than 50% of the people's votes.

B.S. ... GW was elected the first time by a panel of activists wearing black robes ... they forced the vote count in Florida to be discontinued, thus rewarding Florida's vote to swing to GW in the Electoral College. King George absolutely DIDN'T 'win' the first election ... it was handed to him by the Supreme Court. We will NEVER really know what the real count would have been ... any report to the contrary is suspect.

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

B.S. ... GW was elected the first time by a panel of activists wearing black robes ... they forced the vote count in Florida to be discontinued, thus rewarding Florida's vote to swing to GW in the Electoral College. King George absolutely DIDN'T 'win' the first election ... it was handed to him by the Supreme Court. We will NEVER really know what the real count would have been ... any report to the contrary is suspect.

No, Chief. You weren't watching the courts closely enough.

The SCOFLA (Supreme Court of Florida) re-wrote election laws after an election had taken place to effect that same election. By doing so, their decision was sent to the US Supreme Court. In the end, seven of the justices (including the more liberal ones) threw out the SCOFLA ruling because it clearly violated electoral due process. The more controversial ruling of 5-4 was to end the shenanigans and to stop this nation from looking worse than it already was.

Months following, a consortium of newspapers did their own review of the ballots.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...loridamain.htm

"The newspapers then applied the accounting firm's findings to four standards used in Florida and elsewhere to determine when an undervote ballot becomes a legal vote. By three of the standards, Bush holds the lead. The fourth standard gives Gore a razor-thin win.

The results reveal a stunning irony. The way Gore wanted the ballots recounted helped Bush, and the standard that Gore felt offered him the least hope may have given him an extremely narrow victory."

The NY Times, hardly considered a Bush friendly paper throughout the ordeal and after, ran a series of articles on their own recount:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/po...795620&ei=5070

"A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.
Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.
...
But the consortium's study shows that Mr. Bush would have won even if the justices had not stepped in (and had further legal challenges not again changed the trajectory of the battle), answering one of the abiding mysteries of the Florida vote."

It's time to end it, Chief.

The election was not stolen. Bush was not "selected."

AE
That is the way that you view history ... it's not mine. Many people (myself included) don't agree with you ... as far as we are concerned GW WAS NOT elected the first time and all of the fancy BS by the Supremes and other courts will NEVER change that.

What was wrong with letting local/state politics play out and get an actual count of the vote???

After all this is the United States isn't it???

Good post, AE. Nice facts!

Originally Posted by phoenix80

Hey, if you and people like you think "Dubbya" is a failure and incompetent, then why did Americans re-elect him?

Because Kerry would have been worse

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

AE
That is the way that you view history ... it's not mine. Many people (myself included) don't agree with you ... as far as we are concerned GW WAS NOT elected the first time and all of the fancy BS by the Supremes and other courts will NEVER change that.

What was wrong with letting local/state politics play out and get an actual count of the vote???

After all this is the United States isn't it???

Well, the problem, as addressed by the US Supremem Court (in the 7-2 decision) is that the same standard was not being applied to judge votes. THis violates due process and can lead to very unscrupulous vote counting.

That is, if a state uses the punch tab votes for federal elections and one county decides valid votes must be clearly punched through and one (or the same) decides after the election results were first tabulated that a vote counts if it's dimpled, then you may have election funny-business going on. It was as much about Florida as it was about the rest of the nation and general election procedures that must remain fair and as unbiased as possible, but they must especially not be changed after votes are cast.

By the way, the SCOFLA actually stated it was okay to change election laws after an election, which is why they were slapped down (in legal terms) when their decision was returned one time without the US Cupreme Court hearing the case. This is the same as a teacher handing your term paper back a minute after you turned it in because it was written in crayon.

The US Supreme Court said, "No. You can't change your way of counting votes after an election count was made. You must have a uniform standard." This decision came after weeks of legal wrangling. The 5-4 decision came down to end the whole affair and to move the nation forward. They listed the reasons why it had to end, but I think the knew the nature of lawyers and lawsuits and knew that unless they came down and ended it, lawyers would continue legal action indefinitely (especially since the SCOFLA was showing clear bias in their decisions).

Originally Posted by USAFAUX2004

Because Kerry would have been worse

Couldn't have put it any better ... and ... by the time of the re-election GW had made a mess of things and we all thought he should be stuck with it instead of someone else.

I think that AE has made a good point, or two. Anything factual you can submit to actually rebut what he has said (about the elections) would be great. I never like to hear just one side of the story.

As for the original topic, heck I thought we had agreed to disagree lol.