Cads & 'Hanging Chads'

Thanks oh-so-very-much, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, for letting the American people know that you did not think the Supreme Court should have become involved in deciding the 2000 Election! So said Mrs. O'Connor in what she must have thought would be a quiet little interview with a newspaper recently re: the Bush V. Gore ruling. But no! People like me are all in a huff of sorts. What, pray tell, kept the once-liked (now not-so-much) "Swing Vote(r)" on the Court at that time, from voicing her opinion – THEN? (Why wait 12 years from her retirement to express regret and doubt over what became another travesty of injustice?)

Just because Florida had "issues" with counting ballots (remember those "hanging chads"?) didn't mean that such a delicate decision need be placed in the hands and minds of a court filled with already politically biased and tainted appointees?

Wasn't it more than a chad tad odd how quickly The Popular Vote was jettisoned to ensure that the Electoral College "winner" would win The Big Prize? And, of course, it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the "winner's" brother was the Governor of Florida and everything. No. Not at all. Someone else took the fall. Jeb Bush's prints couldn't be found on the trail which led to a Supreme Court involvement. No way would a Bush bend the truth or play dirty to get what they want. Scratch that from your conspiracy-filled mind. Bigger Powers That Be made it happen – just like magic!

Only four Supreme Court Justices are needed to agree on whether or not they will "hear" a case. We don't know who the four were, but I doubt O'Connor was among them. And, to be fair to her, perhaps she did voice doubt to her colleagues. Nevertheless, Bush "won" and Al Gore "lost."

And thus did the United States lose. Naturally, no one can completely predict how another person will react; however, I sincerely doubt that Gore would have sent our troops to Iraq after 9/11. And yes, I completely believe 9/11 would have happened no matter who was president in 2001. We don't know with any certainty if the Taliban Memos would have gathered dust on the desks of Gore appointees as they did on Bush's watch, or, if they were read, if anyone would have done anything different than what was not done to deter the attacks.

But again, Iraq is not where we would have ended-up, losing so many lives and the respect of both allies and citizens in the U.S. who were not in agreement with the location of our Revenge War. Yadda-yadda-yadda. Gore did not have his eye on Taking Iraq's Oil and Cleaning Up Daddy's Incomplete War.

It's hindsight, of course. The past. Nothing to be gained here by dwelling on what did not come to be.
According to THIS ARTICLE, Bush probably would have won the election anyway.

But, it was nice to dream for a few minutes of what life may have been like under a Gore administration following a Terrorist Attack. Afghanistan would have been properly dealt with; our country would not be as supposedly "broke" as it now is from the waste of money, time, and again, too many lost lives and limbs by bombing the streets of Baghdad, as well as roaming an IUD-ridden land created from our Invasion; and the unbearable Saddam Hussein would still be harboring a serious jones for his "African Beauty" Condi Rice, while watching porn just like all of the other guys around him, simultaneously receiving a lovely mani-pedi.

So much for that….

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