Ebert’s article shows that there is a certain constancy of humans across the centuries and eons. His collection of inventions and omissions serves as a wonderful example of how truth through the centuries has always been distorted by people’s self-certainty. I recently read an article on this by Warren C Brown, "What’s ‘Middle’ About the Middle Ages?," in Caltech’s Engineering and Science No 2, 2000. Brown writes:

Ebert starts by saying it will be instructive to consider " How and why, for example, did it become established in so many minds that Bush was the presumptive winner…" Is this even true? How many people did think " that Bush was the presumptive winner"? If a great majority did, then Ebert is railing against the great majority. If a tiny minority, then Ebert has made up a <fact>. Whatever, I guess Ebert’s point is that because people thought that Bush won, he found it easy to steal the election. This is patently false, because the issue was decided by courts, not public opinion. Or maybe Ebert believes that the Justices of the US Supreme Court were duped into thinking Bush won and they therefore blindly awarded him the election (rather than through partisan bias). However, local and federal judges agreed with Bush while state judges agreed with Gore. So is it Ebert’s point that state judges are honest and can’t be duped but that local and federal judges are dishonest, so can be duped, or both? Ebert doesn’t tell me.

Ebert rails against any " assault on the honesty of election judges and the courts in general" and proceeds to do so himself by writing about " the Supremes' federal coup". <Don’t complain about my judges; they are honest. It’s okay for me to complain, yours are crooks.>

Ebert leaves out facts when he writes, " when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state." The facts are that the deadline set by state law was a week before the declaration made by Kathleen Harris. The Florida Supreme Court, against Bush’s and Harris’ wishes and the interpretation of law by a lower court, extended the deadline by a week. When that time was up she made the declaration. If the Florida Supreme court had wanted two weeks delay, it could have specified so in its original ruling.

What is or isn’t an " unnecessary deadline" brings to mind Bill Clinton’s famous remark "It depends on the what the meaning of ‘is’ is." Ebert seems to think it " unnecessary" because the result wasn’t the one he wanted; he doesn’t seem to base his position on the law. Kathleen Harris’s acts were less "unnecessary" than the many actions President Clinton took in the last few weeks to unilaterally impose his policies on the country. Clinton had no deadline other than leaving office, yet he evaded Senate confirmation of a federal judge, placed huge tracts of forest off limits for logging, and signed a treaty that he himself said had serious flaws. He had the power through his office and used it. Harris had a deadline – ballots were supposed to be counted and certified.

Continuing with the same paragraph, Ebert writes "the Republicans referred to it endlessly as a valid event, even though it was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born." I guess here that Ebert is now answering his " How and why" question. So people began to believe GWB won because of Harris’ "shameless ploy."? Well to me it was a valid event, not just something referred to as a valid event. Harris was the official in Florida charged with this and she did her job – on TV so that media people could see and broadcast it. (Ebert is a media person, gaining fame as a film critic; he would probably also complain if it had not been done on TV. Then Ebert might have dismissed it as <a backroom deal.>)

On Harris’ intent I probably find some common ground with Ebert. Certainly she would have liked to help seal the victory of GWB. But so what? She followed the rules and now the losers are complaining. As noted above, in his last weeks of office Bill Clinton has recently tried to " slam the door" on use of various natural resources. So, I would guess that Ebert believes if a Democrat uses his office to do <good> its okay but if a Republican uses her official powers its bad. He knows <right>.

It didn’t of course slam the door. Florida and US Supreme court rulings came after Harris’ certification. Ebert doesn’t use the words " ploy to slam the door" in reference to Gore’s appeal to the Florida Supreme court, whose ruling he wishes had been final. He writes, " Three days later the Supreme Court majority overruled the Florida court's attempt to interpret Florida law." 

One of the many issues left out by Ebert (he is much more space limited than I am; this is nearly twice as long as his original) is that the US Constitution directly charges state legislatures with setting the rules for picking electors. If, as it seems to me based on how most Democrats have acted in recent years, Ebert thinks that the US Supreme Court should be the final arbiter in all cases, and especially civil rights cases, I wish that he had applauded the Bush team for adopting this view rather than castigating them (" This led finally to the spectacle of the "states rights" party applauding the Supremes' federal coup") when they turned to the Supreme Court. And, if Ebert thinks the US Supreme Court should be the final arbiter, why does he refer to their decision as a " coup"? Maybe Ebert now is also a states rights advocate? Is it <do as I say, not as I do>?

Ebert as much as says he favors being civil, for he writes, "The Democrats were on the whole more civil in their public statements." But Ebert is not civil. For him Republicans are people who show what " little commitment they have to democracy. These are the people who support every kind of fascism abroad;" <Do as I say, not as I do>? (See more on the intemperateness of this below.)

And Ebert has selective vision as far as foreign policy is concerned. Through nearly fifty years Democrats and Republicans alike supported dictatorships abroad that were threatened with takeovers by communists (China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam), religious fundamentalists (Afghanistan, Iran), and anarchists (Somalia). US policy was based on the belief, which I share, that since we couldn’t get rid of all evil it was better to support the lesser evil. Comparing China and Vietnam today to Korea and Taiwan today it is clear that we – Democrats and Republicans alike – made the right choices. The same is true in Afghanistan and Iran, where our side lost and women’s and other human rights have been delivered a major blow, and it is true in many other unmentioned cases.
 

Ebert seems think it bad to charge election stealing. He writes, " The GOP had no hesitation in making the dangerous charge that Democrats were ‘stealing’ the election." Why is it dangerous? I don’t know, but Ebert is well along his self-described dangerous road. What is this article but a very long charge that the GOP stole the election? According to him the GOP " choose political expediency rather than legality." <Do as I say, not as I do.>

Ebert seems to think its bad to be in a frenzy ("Right-wing pundits were stirred to a frenzy.") unless you are a pundit named Roger Ebert. Or maybe it’s only a frenzy (whatever that is) when the bad guys do it.

Should every vote be counted, even if doing so breaks the rules set before the election? If there are deadlines should they be met? According to Ebert, it is yes to counting and no to deadlines if they are " the disenfranchised black voters" but no to counting and yes to deadlines if they are " the illegally franchised military and absentee voters". Isn’t it great, that like the Middle Ages, Ebert knows <right> and wants to count just the votes that favor his side?

My own view on this point is that it is best to follow the rules set in advance. While writing these remarks I saw the first in a series of programs made by Australian TV called "Popstar". The idea behind the program is to have open auditions and choose five young women to be made into pop stars. Thousands showed up and were given 10 second auditions. If they did well they made the first cut and were called back for longer auditions. The process was open to "anyone 18 or over on the day of audition." It turned out – we saw it on camera – that one tryout who did well revealed that she was a few months shy of 18. The judges liked her and thought of allowing her to continue. But in the end they said ‘no’, because they thought that to do otherwise would be unfair to others who had not come, believing that rules were rules. Letting her in – she was deserving – would have only led to an endless series of <shall we or shall we not>s. In Florida, trying to <let in> a few more votes only led to another endless series of unanswerable questions. It’s better to have rules and stick by them. If you don’t like them, follow an orderly democratic process to change them and don’t do it in the heat of the moment. I personally thought the Florida Supreme court would understand this and therefore was very surprised by its ruling.

Now according to Ebert, the Republicans were really lucky. It gave them Democrats who designed " the butterfly ballot", Democrats who couldn’t use them and became " the Jews for Buchanan", and Democratic " election boards that took days off." The Republicans didn’t even have to put something in the water! With all of these charges based on a sort of <sleight of words> Ebert is blaming Republicans for what Democrats did. In fact, of course, the punched card ballots had been used for many years in Florida and the Democrats in charge of Palm Beach, apparently previously satisfied, didn’t junk them. If in Florida, as in New Jersey and other states, sample ballots are circulated by mail before the election, why didn’t the soon-to-be " Jews for Buchanan" or anybody else sue for a change before the election? Maybe because the design wasn’t so confusing and maybe because it was Democrats in charge.

At the very end of the article I received, there is a sort of postscript that may or may not be by Ebert. It has the amazing charge that Republicans are evil. Not just that their policies are worse than those Democrats advocate but that they are evil. It " was nothing less than a coup" and " "fascism in a pin-striped suit". They chose "political expediency rather than legality." They have "little commitment …to democracy." Having heard how bad I am (I am one of them and supported Bush and his legal efforts) should I just turn in my membership card in the human race? I think I’ll decline to do so.

As his tagline, Ebert asks a good question : "Tell me, Conservatives...what part of all of this don't you understand?" My answer: why you contradict yourself over and over and are so hot under the collar.

Gerry Chandler

December 14, 2000

BY ROGER EBERT

Now that the adventure is over, it might be instructive to consider some of the ideas that seeped into the general consciousness. How and why, for example, did it become established in so many minds that Bush was the presumptive winner and Gore the apparent loser?

What the Republicans did, cleverly, was to establish effective "memes" in the minds of the public and the pundits. A meme, so named by the British evolutionist Richard Dawkins, is like a gene, except that instead of advancing through organisms, it moves through minds. Memes are simply ideas that demonstrate a high rate of survival and transmission.

Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when  a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state. Once this bogus "certification" was final (Ms. Harris signing several copies on TV, including a valuable souvenir for herself), the Republicans referred to it endlessly as  a valid event, even though it was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born.

The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." These words were chanted by Baker and the other Bush spokesmen until many Americans accepted them as a form of truth, even though it is clear that thousands of ballots were never counted at all.

Another successful meme was the  assault on the honesty of election judges and the courts in general. They were often characterized by the GOP as partisan crooks, unless their findings agreed with the Bush cause, in which case they were patriots. This led finally to the spectacle of the "states rights" party applauding the Supremes' federal coup halting the recount because, in words that will haunt Scalia forever, a recount might cast "a cloud upon what [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election."

Think about that. In other words, if Gore ended up with more votes, a cloud would be cast on Bush's claims.

Three days later the Supreme Court majority overruled the Florida court's  attempt to interpret Florida law. John Paul Stevens' dissent lamented this "lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed," and added, in words that will long be quoted, "...the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law." The Republicans were not only more effective creators of memes but were also better at raising their voices. The Democrats were on the whole  more civil in their public statements.

The GOP had no hesitation in making the dangerous charge that Democrats were "stealing" the election. This in the face of plausible evidence that Gore got more votes in Florida, as he did nationally. Right-wing pundits were stirred to a frenzy. Ann Coulter accused the Democrats of being "delusional nutcases," called the Florida Supreme Court "power-mad lunatics," and found that the Democrats had crossed the "fine line" between "typical Democrat lies and demonstrably psychotic behavior." More Americans voted for liars and psychotics than for her candidate? Really? Comments like these are an example not of opinion but of behavior. Have you ever seen Ms. Coulter on television? Even her conservative stablemates look queasy as her ideological flywheel spins.

The Democrats were just plain outshouted. And Lady Luck rolled the dice and gave them the butterfly ballot, the Jews for Buchanan, the election boards that took days off, the hired mob to stop the Dade recount, the disenfranchised black voters, the illegally franchised military and absentee voters, the Bush cousin to call the election on TV, the Bush co-chairwoman to rush it through certification, and the Bush brother to mastermind operation fail-safe by the Florida legislature to certify Bush electors no matter who won. Even in Vegas they'd be amazed by luck this rotten; the Miami Herald's statisticians estimated that Gore probably outpolled Bush by about 23,000 votes. That's why it was so important for the Republicans to stop the count.

It is important, then, to keep in mind that Bush was not obviously the winner nor Gore obviously the loser. The GOP has captured the election but may have done itself damage in the process, leaving doubts about the fairness of its tactics and the recklessness of its rhetoric. At the end the Democrats were left with one meme that showed promise: That they were the ones who wanted to count the votes, while the Republicans did not. If memes work like genes in the evolution of political opinion in America, this one may be the fittest, and may survive We can only hope. Tell me, Conservatives...what part of all of this don't you understand?

*** - *** - *** - *** - *** - *** *
 

The process by which Bush gained the presidency was nothing less than a coup, the most naked domestic manifestation to date of what Michael Parenti calls "fascism in a pin-striped suit". The eagerness of the Republican party and its judicial wing to choose political expediency rather than legality at every juncture in "the adventure", obviously inhibited only by their own estimates of what they could get away with, made plain how little commitment they have to democracy. These are the people who support every kind of fascism abroad; should we have expected anything different from them at home? Nope, not if they could get away with it.