This is really a moot point. President Bush was elected. Why argue over what was right and wrong when there are no further courses of action that can be taken? We all know each others points of view by now.

The facts seem pretty cut and dry to me.

Originally Posted by PJ24

The facts seem pretty cut and dry to me.

Facts, rhetoric, opinions, rants, raves, logic, law, legalities, and all manner of other things we have heard.

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

Facts, rhetoric, opinions, rants, raves, logic, law, legalities, and all manner of other things we have heard.

You left out illogic.

Originally Posted by PJ24

You left out illogic.

I thought that went without saying.

It astounds me ... the number of people that believe that GW 'won' his first election and they ALWAYS point out the counts that were made AFTER the ballots had been pawed, juggled, smacked, bounced, turned upside down, jossled, jiggled and generally handled in various non-gentle ways, and then they say "the counts (long after vote count was stopped), showed that Bush would have won anyway" ...

I SAY ... WE WILL NEVER KNOW HOW THE VOTE WOULD HAVE COME OUT IF THE RECOUNT COULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETED THE VERY FIRST TIME BY THE FLORIDIAN ELECTION OFFICIALS ...

ALL OF YOUR WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACTS - YOU CAN NOT TURN BACK THE CLOCK AND UNDO ANY CHANGES CAUSED BY ALL OF THE BALLOT HANDLING.

Talk about: logic, illogic, facts, rhetoric, opinions, rants, raves, law, legalities, and all manner of other things we have heard. This above is the one that ALWAYS gets me. WE WILL NEVER REALLY KNOW.

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

I SAY ... WE WILL NEVER KNOW HOW THE VOTE WOULD HAVE COME OUT IF THE RECOUNT COULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETED THE VERY FIRST TIME BY THE FLORIDIAN ELECTION OFFICIALS ...

But wasn't it how the recounts were counted that was called into question? (e.g. dimples count or not, chad counts or not, complete punches count or not, so on and so forth.) Not that an actual recount was being done or wanted to be done? You had four different ways they wanted to recount it. That was what was called into question.

The butterfly and caterpillar ballots
Use of Palm Beach County standard
Inclusion of overvotes
And my Favorite: Gore's four-county strategy

Florida Supreme Court recount ruling
On December 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Florida Supreme Court ruling ordering a full statewide hand recount of all undervotes not yet tallied. The U.S. Supreme Court action effectively ratified Florida election officials' determination that Bush won by a few hundred votes out of more than 6 million cast.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/flo...ries/main.html

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

ALL OF YOUR WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACTS -

You said a mouthful there Chief. If, And, Or, Neither, Nor, does not change the fact that the POTUS is George W Bush Jr.

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

YOU CAN NOT TURN BACK THE CLOCK AND UNDO ANY CHANGES CAUSED BY ALL OF THE BALLOT HANDLING.

So why worry so much about it?

But since we are worrying so much about it. . .


Here is a timeline I dug up in the CNN archives. Seems pretty unbiased to me but I am not well versed on the topic. It seems to me that in relation to the last link/excerpt all the Gore campaign did was hurt itself with delaying tactics. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLI...ere/index.html

Then once you are done reading that, read this article and the "Reverend" Jesse Jackson's take. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLI...ans/index.html

Here is an excerpt I find amusing in relation to this discussion (same article as the above):

The court's 7-2 opinion concluded that the recounts would violate the Constitutional guarantees of equal protection under law, since the counts were being conducted under different standards in different counties. The court returned the case to the Florida Supreme Court for a remedy, but five justices concluded that the time for a recount had expired Tuesday night -- the deadline for naming presidential electors.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLI...ans/index.html

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

You said a mouthful there Chief. If, And, Or, Neither, Nor, does not change the fact that the POTUS is George W Bush Jr.



So why worry so much about it?

I wasn't worrying about the fact that GW is now the pres ... all I said is that we will never really know how the vote would have gone the first time around ... POTUS was named by the Electoral College (after the Supremes sang along party lines) and we are stuck with King George. (I realize we can't undo this ... even IF we would like to).

Sorry Chief, I decided to do some editing and toss in some links and the like. Please comment on the additions if you like.

Um, so you don't recognize the Electoral College now, either?