"Our democracy is still evolving. You know we had some problems in some of our presidential elections. As you may remember, in 2000 our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of one of the men running for president was governor of the state. So we have our problems too."The Guardian -- the Guardian! -- calls that statement a "gaffe." I call it honesty.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Hillary on election fraud
Both right-wingers and left-wingers are excoriating Hillary Clinton for uttering the following words in Nigeria:
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11 comments:
Perhaps the Guardian too is run by gobbledongers. Maybe I meant to write "doppelgangers."
Since 2008, honesty is a gaffe.
What problem could the left-wingers have with that? It's not like she followed it up with the primary BS of 2008!
One argument I read was because Hillary Clinton did not mention 2008 as being a "gaffe", she was being hypocritical. Yeah, that would have been a smart move.
There was a gaffe in 2000, there literally was not enough time for a full state recount based on the laws in place, that is a legal gaffe.
If you don't do it right the first time, and don't have the time to do it right the second time, that is a gaffe.
Seems to me that what she said was correct, but in my opinion understated.
It came down to Florida and Jeb Bush was Governor of that state. Who's gonna complian about that statement? His Secretary of State stopped the recount, illegally.
The Supreme Court appointed Bush. Gore gave up.
Michael Kinsley memorably said a gaffe in Washington is when someone speaks an uncomfortable truth.
So, it's a gaffe, under that meaning.
By the federal empowerment of the states to handle elections by whatever rules they make, the entire election violated the equal protection clause argument upon which the high court's ruling rested. There is no federal requirement that a conflicted state co-chairman of the Bush campaign recuse herself from her Secretary of State duties. No requirement that she allow submission of results on a normal state business day, Monday, rather than Sunday. And no requirement that the governor recuse himself even in the case of his brother's candidacy.
Gore "gave up" by considering the SCOTUS ruling final. Which it is. There is no appeal. There was no remedy, short of taking it to the streets, and overturning a binding Constitutional ruling, however flawed it was.
XI
Good point: Gore did give up. Clinton's statement was certainly honest, but why no mention of serious "problems" with the Supreme Court? The judges left it to the last moment, kind of said there was a lot to the view that Bush hadn't won, and then said constitutionally nothing could now be done to stop him taking office, because...because it was the last moment. That's called laughing in people's faces.
b, meet XI. XI is right about the Supreme Court. The Republicans may have packed the court with assholes, but its rulings are final. Gore had no basis on which to continue to fight.
"We're not last because we're right, we're right because we're last." - Justice Robert Jackson
The media can only report on Hill's " gaffes"....so they create them as they go.She resented the case in the most factual, benign manner.Someday when she says 2+2=4 , they will call it a " gaffe."
Why could Gore not have said, "This is a legal coup d'etat"? Going back as a senator legimitised it.
Obama said of Zelaya's ouster in Honduras that "we believe that the coup was not legal." Unlike the 'election' of his own predecessor then! :-)
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