Justice Stevens, in new memoir, rebukes Bush for 2000 recount maneuver

[alp227]

In his new book, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens takes a jab at George W. Bush for seeking to stop the ballot counting in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

Bush led his opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, by 537 votes when the Florida Supreme Court ordered state officials to continue a manual recount of votes cast. Bush immediately filed an application in the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to halt the recount.

Stevens calls the application “frivolous,” and recalls bumping into Justice Stephen Breyer at a Christmas party where the men discussed the application. “We agreed that the application was frivolous,” Stevens writes. “To secure a stay, a litigant must show that one is necessary to prevent a legally cognizable irreparable injury. Bush’s attorneys had failed to make any such showing.”

Nonetheless, on December 9, the Court granted the stay by a vote of five to four. On Dec. 12, the Court resolved the 2000 election. As Stevens puts it, “What I still regard as a frivolous stay application kept the Court extremely busy for four days.”

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/political-bookworm/post/justice-stevens-in-new-memoir-rebukes-bush-for-2000-recount-maneuver/2011/10/10/gIQAv4jUaL_blog.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. Bush displayed BULLY TRAITS in them days...he was not a good model for The Oval Office

even after 8 years...his skills were lacking and obvious...

He was hopelessly LOST for all of 8 years..

He is still lost

[FrenchieCat]

2. Those who voted to hear this case will never be forgotten in our history......

they are infamous and they will become even more so.

[ChandlerJr]

4. Quick, without going to the Google

Name them.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Asshole #1, Asshole #2, Asshole #3, Asshole #4, and Asshole #5,

Renquist
Kennedy
O'Connor
Scalia
Thomas

[Deep13]

8. Fat Tony Scalia, William Klansman Rhenquist...

...Clarence "Whatever-Tony-Says" Thomas, Sandra "Temporary Insanity" O'Connor and Anthony no-relation Kennedy.

[gratuitous]

3. There was great chaos under heaven, and the GOP found the situation to be excellent

There was a lot of frivolousness in those six weeks, not all of it perpetrated by the Bush campaign, but much of it instigated by them. I still can't finish Jeffrey Toobin's book account of the election, because I just get too sick to my stomach re-living Republican chicanery, Democratic passivity, and Supreme Court jiggery-pokery.

[libinnyandia]

5. Nader 2000

Nader made it possible.

[Deep13]

7. Damn pro-reality judicial activists!

Just another example of unelected judges using "laws" and "facts" to try to prevent candidates from taking public offices they bought and paid for--and failing.

[Rex]

9. It took 5 non-elected traitors to hand the 2000 election to GWB.

Figures it was also someone not elected to office. The day the music died. Bye bye democracy.

[struggle4progress]

11. It was a strange ruling from the states-rights strict-constructionist crowd: they decided

the state supreme court couldn't interpret state election law, and they ignored the clear intent of the constitution to throw electoral college disputes to the house of representatives

[spanone]

10. so how did the supremes come to support this admittedly 'frivolous' application?

it doesn't make sense...unless the supreme court was compromised

[Rex]

12. Because if GWB would have lost his case it would cause grievous

harm to his chances of becoming POTUS. I know how weak it sounds, but that is the decision handed down by Scarface and Slappy. Cut the timeframe out of the picture and Gore would have 'won'. They used a technicality to STEAL the election...hence why many of us say it was STOLEN to this day.