I've never liked George W. Bush, but after the 2000 "election" I couldn't imagine liking him less. Sure, conservatives will defend the stolen election by arguing that it was Al Gore who tried to steal the election. They'll wildy wave their arms in fits of anger trying to argue that Mexican citizens are voting with reckless abandon in this country. (To be fair, some offer a more cogent, yet still cherry-picked, analysis.)
I've always suspected that even conservatives knew their defense of Bush's victory in Florida was bullshit. The unforgettable fact is that Al Gore was elected by this country and the people of Florida to be President. Whatever impact the early declaration of Florida for Gore might have had on Republican turnout in the panhandle, its detrimental impacts were more than offset by the poorly designed butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County (which cost Gore at least 6,607 votes) and the black voters who were illegally disenfranchised (until a change in Florida law earlier this month, one-third of black men in Florida were not allowed to vote).
Putting all that aside, Al Gore still received more votes in Florida than George W. Bush using the standards established by each county's election officials. The problem is that a statewide recount using those standards was never undertaken.
We know that more ballots were marked for Al Gore than George W. Bush because an independent, non-partisan team of researchers counted each disputed ballot in the entire state of Florida. They planned to release their findings in late September. But after the 9/11 attacks, the research consortium decided to postpone release of its potentially incendiary results, and when they did release the results, they did so without much fanfare. If you review their findings, you'll see that Al Gore's strategy of a selective recount would not have changed the election's result, but that sidesteps the core truth that even if you set aside the problematic ballots and the disenfranchisement of blacks, Al Gore still received more valid votes than George W. Bush, and the Supreme Court squashed any hope of discovering that fact before it was too late.
It's important to always remember that Bush is the only president since the 19th century to win an election with fewer votes than his opponent. It's even more important to remember that he only took office after an intense legal struggle in the state of Florida, governed by his brother, a struggle prematurely aborted by five U.S. Supreme Court justices, each of whom were appointed when Bush's father was vice president or president.
I say all this because after Bush successfully staged his coup in 2000, I could not imagine having a lower opinion of him. Unfortunately, in the years since, he has proven that my circa-2000 imagination was quite limited indeed. In fact, just about any American who does not believe in Christian Zionism has had their opinion of Bush crushed by the weight of his disastrous Presidency. (To be fair, I haven't seen a study correlating support for Bush with Christian Zionism, but given that about one-third of the country subscribes to the basic notion that "Israel must have all of the promised land, including Jerusalem, to facilitate the second coming of the messiah," I suspect that I'm right.)
Despite all the havoc that conservative support for Bush has wrought, one of my guilty pleasures is reading their critiques of Bush's Presidency as they come to realize the damage they have done. And now that we are approaching 50 months of war with/in/against/for Iraq (Bush's policy is so confusing I'm not sure what preposition I should use), some of the criticism comes from what might be described as "reality-based" conservatives.
Consider the following opinion pieces:
- First, one blogger debunks the notion that Bush is evil. While he agrees that explaining Bush's job performance could be explained by having made a deal with Satan, he wonders where the physical evidence is.
- Second, a columnist writes that it is much more plausible that Bush and his cronies are alien lifeforms.
They are both hilarious. I'm glad to see that hope is not lost for American conservatives and that they have a good sense of humor. Plus, I know they're kidding around, but actually I think they might be on to something.
And I suspect that now that might be a bit more willing to admit that they were full of crap about the Florida recount in 2000. Some might even wish that Gore, who at the very least is an alien from a different planet than Bush, had been elected.
© Jed Lewison