Courting Disaster
Trent called and told me that the Supreme Court hearing on the Florida vote was on the radio. It was a tape from the earlier live event. He said he thought that I would find it interesting, and upon his recommendation I turned off the Mozart and tuned into the Supremes. Interesting? I don’t think so. And maybe a little disappointing in that regard. I listened for a half-hour, and was distressed that none of the justices rose to speak to the larger issue of voting rights, choosing instead to nitpick technicalities in the wording of prior decisions and laws.
Wouldn’t it have been grand to hear a wise voice declare that the fundamental right to vote will always surpass any issue of how that ballot is cast? How extraordinary it would have been for one of the black-robed nine to speak to the need of the American people to come together, instead of be further pulled apart? Someone to observe that neither candidate had shown himself worthy of being president and that the American people were essentially split on which might do less damage.
Beneath the major headlines are other elections stories that haven’t got much play in the mainstream media -- that sewer otherwise referred to as local television news. Like the persistent hassling of black voters in several Florida counties. Or the tampering with absentee ballots by Republican volunteers in other counties to make them eligible for the final tally. Both matters are in the courts. Either matter decided in his favor, or the first-time counting of more than twenty-thousand machine-rejected ballots, could deliver Gore a victory in Florida and the nation.
While I think that The Wooden One would be a significantly less dangerous failure than Bush-Lite, I also fear that the Republicans would be more vindictive that the Democrats were they to lose. They are threatening to boycott the inauguration if it isn’t their man, and they’re the ones screaming the loudest about a stolen election, claiming that Gore will keep counting until he gets the number he wants. How remarkably unpresidential the Bush team has looked. Of course, it wasn’t Bush himself in the forefront, but his Daddy’s Secretary of State, James Baker, that brilliant strategist who inadvertently gave Saddam Hussein approval to invade Kuwait in 1990. The Gore people look almost as bad, which underscores again why the race was so close.
Add to the septic mix the fact that the Republican-controlled Florida legislature is making noises about appointing their own slate of Bush electors, if things don’t go their way, and you see in a suddenly very clear light that all three branches of government are peopled by incompetents who place their personal professional interests above those of the nation. It would be bad enough if these nincompoops would have to stumble around on a semi-level playing field, but that ain’t gonna happen either. Other headlines, obscured by the election machinations, include the slowest economic third quarter in four years, a decline in personal income, and an increase in unemployment claims.
I think we’re in for some significant upheaval. We’ve experienced massive cultural changes since the end of the Second World War, and have yet to incorporate them into our myth. We don’t know who we are, and we don’t know that that’s important, though we can feel the chaos that is fermenting through myriad strata of our sea-to-shining-sea society. Let’s hope that whoever moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will grow into the office.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.