[OT] Bush vs. Gore - Was: [Sussex] Linux is capitalism, Microsoft is communism?

[Geoffrey John Teale]

> I can't imagine that the US Supreme Court would have tolerated any kind
> of electoral fraud.

Then you have a more limited imagination that I would have suspected for
a man of your intelligence.

If you think the court system of the USA, the UK or any other country
you care to mention is infallable then you are have been walking around
with your eyes closed for too long.

>  Both sides argued their respective cases at great
> length, and the result was upheld. The US Supreme Court judges are
> politically appointed it is true, but it is worth bearing in mind that
> there had been a Democrat administration for the previous 8 years.
> Consequently I suspect that the Supreme Court would have tended to
> incline towards the Democrats, if at all.

Now, now Mr Williams, do at least pay some attention to the facts,
supreme court appointments happen only very rarely - indeed it is the
habit of appointees to remain in their positions until a government they
favour is in power (and thus able to appoint a similarly partisan
replacement).

The five supreme court justices that threw the presidential election to
George W. Bush in their ruling December 12 were appointed by Republican
presidents.  Three by Ronald Reagan, one by Bush's father, and one by
Richard Nixon (William Rehnquist, later elevated to chief justice by
Reagan).

Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by President
George Bush in 1990. He sat silent through all the proceedings on the
Florida recount, as he does generally at all oral arguments, then signed
the opinion written by Rehnquist, upholding all the legal claims made by
the Bush campaign. Only three justices—Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and
Thomas—went so far as to support the claim that any court-supervised
recount of votes in Florida would be unconstitutional because the state
legislature, not the people of Florida, has the sole power to decide who
gets the state's electoral votes.

While Thomas was deliberating the case (or waiting to sign on to the
decision arrived at by Scalia and Rehnquist) Thomas's wife Virginia was
at her job at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank,
collecting résumés for appointments in a possible Bush administration.

A federal appellate judge, Gilbert S. Merritt of the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said that Thomas should have recused
himself. “The spouse has obviously got a substantial interest that could
be affected by the outcome,” he told the New York Times. “You should
disqualify yourself. I think he'd be subject to some kind of
investigation in the Senate.”

Better than that, Section 455 of Title 28 of the United States Code,
“Disqualification of Justices, Judges or Magistrates,” requires court
officers to excuse themselves if a spouse has “an interest that could be
substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

Besides Thomas, Scalia also took part in the decision while a close
relative had a substantial interest in the outcome. Scalia's son Eugene
is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where
one of the senior partners is Theodore B. Olson, who argued Bush's case
before the Supreme Court.

Scalia refused to recuse himself from Bush v. Gore, although the lead
lawyer for the plaintiff was, in effect, his son's boss. 


> It is very frustrating for the loser to miss out by a tiny margin, but
> it happens. I've seen local election results determined by a single
> vote; this usually results in a number of recounts until both parties
> are satisfied - hard on the loser, but there we go.

Well, yes I agree.  Someone always has too lose, and close margins are
perhaps more difficult to accept than landslide victories.  Although for
the entire period you have known me I have been ranting and raving about
how terrible this is, and various other political points do believe me
when I say that I am not inclined to fantasy nor do I generally believe
conspiracy theories.  I genuinely believe, from all the evidence put
before me - not least that the recounts (audited by republican,
democratic and non-partisan bodies) all show that Gore won florida by a
significant margin - that George W. Bush does not sit in the oval office
as the result of a free, fair electoral process.  

... of course, even if he was the choice of the majority of the US
public (as he may well be this time around) I would still be in
fundemental opposition to his standpoint on the majority of topics.

> When it comes to conspiracy theories'r us versus the US Supreme Court, I
> put my faith in the latter.

Each to their own... ...one last thing.  I don't think Kerry is whiter
than white, I know he has sold his soul to corporate America a millions
times over, just as Bush has, but as the only alternative on the plate
he has the undeniable lure of four years of things not getting any
worse, and from where I'm sitting that's a lot better than the
alternative.


-- 
Geoffrey John Teale <tealeg at member.fsf.org>
Free Software Foundation