ALAN DERSHOWITZ

June 15, 2001

How the U.S. Supreme Court overstepped its bounds and declared George Bush the winner of Election 2000.

Millions of Americans were puzzled as well as irate at the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in deciding the presidential election of 2000 with its controversial ruling in Bush v. Gore. The court had been seen as the embodiment of fairness and principle precisely because it was perceived to be above the political fray. How could it now issue a decision that reeked of partisan politics? In “Supreme Injustice,?author and legal expert Alan M. Dershowitz addresses that question head-on, and argues that in this case, for the first time, the court’s majority let its desire for a particular partisan outcome have priority over legal principles. Read an excerpt below.

INTRODUCTION

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. ?Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion in Bush v. Gore

The five justices who ended Election 2000 by stopping the Florida hand recount have damaged the credibility of the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lawless decision in Bush v. Gore promises to have a more enduring impact on Americans than the outcome of the election itself.

The five justices who ended Election 2000 by stopping the Florida hand recount have damaged the credibility of the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lawless decision in Bush v. Gore promises to have a more enduring impact on Americans than the outcome of the election itself. The nation has accepted the election of George W. Bush, as it must under the rule of law. It will have an opportunity to reassess this result in 2004. But the unprecedented decision of the five justices to substitute their political judgment for that of the people threatens to undermine the moral authority of the high court for generations to come.

The Supreme Court, which consists of only nine relatively unknown justices with small staffs, has wielded an enormous influence in the history of our nation. It is the most powerful court in the world ?the envy of judges in every other country. Presidents accept its rulings, even when disagreeing. The public eventually embraces much of what the justices say in their judgments. Legislatures rarely seek to overrule their decisions. Though only one part of our delicate system of checks and balances, the high court speaks the final word on many of the most divisive and important issues of the day. This enormous power has always been viewed as legitimate because of the unique status of the justices as transcending partisan politics, eschewing personal advantage and pronouncing the enduring constitutional values of our nation. We defer to them because we respect them.

Now in one fell swoop, five partisan judges have caused many Americans to question each of the assumptions undergirding the special status accorded these nine robed human beings. Bush v. Gore showed them to be little difference from ordinary politicians. Their votes reflected not any enduring constitutional values rooted in the precedents of the ages, but rather the partisan quest for immediate political victory. In so voting, they shamed themselves and the Court on which they serve, and they defiled their places in history.

Advertisement

Because the Supreme Court lacks the legitimacy and accountability that come with election and the power that derives from the sword and the purse, its authority rests on public acceptance of its status as a nonpartisan arbiter of the law. This moral authority is essential to its continued effectiveness as an important guarantor of our constitutional liberties. Unless steps are taken to mitigate the damage inflicted on the Court by these five justices, the balance struck by our Constitution between popular democracy and judicial oligarchy will remain askew.

Preserving this delicate balance is essential to our liberties and to our system of checks and balances. That is why I have written a book about the Supreme Court decision rather than about the election. Here I offer a critical assessment of the decision itself as well as the motivations of the justices who rendered it. I provide both direct and circumstantial evidence that some of them were motivated by partisan advantage, while others were motivated by expectation of personal gain. I explore the dangerous implications of the decision in Bush v. Gore for all Americans, regardless of party affiliation or ideology, especially since the Supreme Court ?prior to this case ?was among the last institutions whose integrity remained above approach. Finally, I propose steps that can be taken to avoid any repetition of this supreme injustice.

Unless steps are taken to mitigate the damage inflicted on the Court by these five justices, the balance struck by our Constitution between popular democracy and judicial oligarchy will remain askew.

The majority ruling in Bush v. Gore marked a number of significant firsts. Never before in American history has a presidential election been decided by the Supreme Court. Never before in American history have so many law professors, historians, political scientists, Supreme Court litigators, journalists who cover the high court, and other experts ?at all points along the political spectrum ?been in agreement that the majority decision of the court was not only “bad constitutional law?but “lawless,?“illegitimate,?“unprincipled,?“partisan,? “fraudulent,?“disingenuous,?and motivated by improper considerations. In addition to the remarkable expert consensus regarding this case, there is also widespread popular outrage at what the high court did. Though the level of this outrage tends to mirror party affiliation, it is safe to say that the degree of confusion over what actually happened is not limited to one party. There are millions of Americans who do not strongly identify with the Democratic Party ?indeed, even some who voted for George W. Bush ?but who cannot understand how five justices could determine the outcome of a presidential election. Moreover, the furor within the Supreme Court itself ?among some justices and law clerks ?is unprecedented in the annals of this usually harmonious institution.

In light of these factors, many Americans who believed that the Court was an institution that could be trusted to remain above partisan politics are now experiencing a genuine loss of confidence in the impartiality of the judicial branch of our government. This widespread loss of confidence, reaching to the pinnacle of our judiciary, should be the concern of all Americans, because the Supreme Court has played such a critical role in the history of our nation. Without its moral authority, we would be a less tolerant, less vibrant, and less free democracy. The high court, throughout its long and distinguished history, has helped us ?not always perfectly or swiftly ?through crises of institutional racism, religious intolerance, McCarthyism, systematic malapportionment, presidents who deemed themselves above the law, and governors who defied the Constitution. The Court stepped in when the other branches of government were unwilling or unable to enforce the constitutional rights of unpopular minorities. The justices were always at their greatest when they could act unanimously and on principles that could be easily justified and widely accepted. When they act in an unprincipled and partisan manner ?as they did in Bush v. Gore ?they risk losing respect and frittering away the moral capital accumulated by their predecessors over generations. That is what Justice Stephen Breyer was referring to when he wrote in his dissent in Bush v. Gore :

”[I]n this highly politicized political matter, the appearance of a split decision runs the risk of undermining the public’s confidence in the Court itself. That confidence is a public treasure. It has been built slowly over many years. It is a vitally necessary ingredient of any successful effort to protect basic liberty and, indeed, the rule of law itself?[We] risk a self-inflicted wound ?a wound that may harm not just the Court, but the Nation.?lt;p>That is why all Americans must care about this case and must derive appropriate lessons from it. The Supreme Court’s moral capital will certainly be needed again in our future, and so it is a tragedy that it has been dissipated for short-term partisan gain in a case in which the Supreme Court had no proper role.

Nor is it relevant to the point of this book that had the Supreme Court not stopped the hand count, Bush might well have won ?according to some accounts, by even more of a margin than the official count gave him. The Supreme Court did not know what the result of the hand count would be when it stopped it. A hijacking occurs when someone unlawfully seeks to divert a vehicle from its course. The fact that the vehicle ultimately ends up at its intended destination does not mitigate the hijacker’s culpability.

This book is about the culpability of those justices who hijacked Election 2000 by distorting the law, violating their own expressed principles, and using their own robes to bring about a partisan result. I accuse them of failing what I call the shoe-on-the-other-foot test : I believe that they would not have stopped a hand recount if George W. Bush had been seeking it. This is an extremely serious charge, because deciding a case on the basis of the identity of the litigants is a fundamental violation of the judicial oath, to “administer justice without respect to persons…” In this book, I marshal the evidence in support of this charge. In a larger sense, this book is also about the Supreme Court and its continuing importance to all Americans. Its purpose is to alert the American people to a serious problem in the hope that constructive criticism can help to avoid a crisis that could endanger our liberties.

Excerpted from “Supreme Injustice,?by Alan Dershowitz.

July 23, 2001

Democrats Seek a Query Into High Court's Recount Ruling.

The Oregon Democratic Party today endorsed a drive to impeach five U.S. Supreme Court justices for the decision that effectively gave President Bush his office last year.

The party's central committee voted overwhelmingly to begin a campaign it hopes will take the issue to the House of Representatives, which has the authority to impeach justices.

The resolution passed by 66 Oregon party activists called for the "immediate investigation of the behavior" of the five justices who voted to stop hand recounts of Florida ballots.

The decision gave Bush Florida's electoral votes, which brought him the majority of electoral votes and the presidency. Then-Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote.

The justices who voted to stop the hand recounts were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

"This is the first organized effort to advocate impeachment of five justices," said former representative Charles Porter (D-Ore.), who first raised the issue with Lane County Democrats and then persuaded the state party to adopt the resolution.

Porter accused the five of "egregiously bad behavior, high crimes and misdemeanors."

Neel Pender, executive director of Oregon's Democratic Party, said party officials would ask its congressional delegation to begin investigating the matter. The delegation has four Democratic House members and one Democratic senator.

Neither the delegation nor national Democratic Party officials had any immediate comment.

There has been no response yet from the high court on the Oregon move, but the justices have defended their December ruling. Recently, Thomas said at a conference in St. Louis that any suggestion of partisanship in the decision was wrong.

"I think one of the ways our process is cheapened and trivialized is when it's suggested we have a way to make decisions that have more to do with politics," Thomas said.

Oregon has long been known as a maverick state in U.S. politics. It was the home of some of the earliest official opposition to the Vietnam War, and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won 5 percent of the vote in the 2000 election.

Only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached. In 1805, Samuel Chase survived a Senate trial after he was impeached on charges of discriminating against supporters of Thomas Jefferson

AP Staff

June 26, 2001

A former member of Congress launched a campaign to impeach the five conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to stop the presidential ballot recount in Florida last year -- but admits it's a long shot.

Charles Porter, an 82-year-old attorney in Eugene, said the Supreme Court ruling was so clearly influenced by politics that under the Constitution there may be grounds to impeach the justices for bias.

The 5-4 decision in December resulted in George W. Bush being named president-elect and his opponent Al Gore conceding the election.

"They did wrong, they voted politically to stop the election," Porter said.

"A lot of people out there think this would be a terrible precedent for the United States if the court could ... vote for political reasons," he said.

At issue is a clause in the Constitution calling on judges to show "good behavior," Porter said. While this is not defined in the founding document, the American Bar Association says judges should avoid bias or even the "appearance of impropriety."

"We say they tarnished the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court," Porter said.

Porter wrote a resolution seeking the removal of justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy.

"A lot of people think the Supreme Court is all powerful. Well, they are if they're handing down decisions. But not if they're violating the Constitution," he said.

Porter found some support over the weekend within the state Democratic Party.

The chairman of the party's Executive Committee, Jim Edmunson, agreed Saturday to sponsor the proposal for a vote at the party's central committee meeting on July 22. If it passes, the state party could recommend other states pass similar resolutions.

"The idea is to draw attention to the problem," Edmunson said. "We're treating this as something with legal merit. Whether it's politically feasible is another question."

Congress, which must initiate the articles of impeachment, is now controlled by a majority of Republicans.

More than 600 law professors around the country have signed a petition decrying the Supreme Court decision, and some have asked the Senate to refrain from ratifying any appointments to the court while President Bush is in office.

About 14 law professors in Oregon have signed on, according to Steve Bender, a law professor at University of Oregon.

Porter served two terms in Congress beginning in 1957. He later used his practice in Eugene to litigate over a 30-year period for the removal of a cross from public land in the city.

June 23, 2001

Exclusive Interview with the Oregon Democrat who started the Supreme Court Impeachment Drive.

Former Oregon Congressman starts the ball rolling on impeaching the Supreme Court Five who annointed Bush.

This coming Sunday, July 22, the Oregon Democratic Party is likely to become the first state organization to call for the impeachment of the five Supreme Court justices who put Bush in the White House. The drive was started by former Congressman Charles Porter, of Eugene Oregon, who served in the House of Representatives in the second term of the Eisenhower administration.

Porter, who practices law in Eugene, talked with BuzzFlash about his resolution and drive to impeach the felonious five.

BuzzFlash : What led you to initiate a resolution for the Oregon State Democratic party to call for the impeachment of the five Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of Bush in Bush vs. Gore?

Charles Porter : Well, first I became outraged at their opinion and I wanted to do something about it. I have always been an activist, one way or the other, and it was so extreme and the fact that people weren’t picking up on it, that they wanted to close the door and forget it. And people didn’t understand that the Supreme Court could be corrected by impeachment.

BuzzFlash : Was it your personal reading of the opinion, that was delivered under the cover of darkness, that led you to this? Did you review the majority opinion in Bush vs. Gore?

Charles Porter : I did, but I did not put myself up as the authority because, although I went to Harvard Law School and was a clerk on the 9th Circuit of Appeals after I got out of law school and I’ve tried a lot of cases and lots of pretty good ones in my day, I do not regard myself as a Constitutional law expert. But when you have their opinion looked at by law review articles and experts, it is devastating. The Supreme Court ruling was lacking in any scholarship or consistency.

It’s just an awful opinion. It won’t stand up at all, and as you know, or maybe you don’t know, a great many professors signed an advertisement that appeared in the New York Times in January and was added to later, saying that this was a political opinion and not a legal opinion. And you take an oath when you’re a judge at any rank, that you’re going to follow the law. They didn't follow the law, and it’s just outrageous that such an opinion would be made for a purely political reason, to help Mr. Bush be assured that he’d get the job. But even if he does have the job because he got more votes and was entitled to the twenty-five electoral votes in Florida, that doesn’t take the Supreme Court off the hook.

If the court itself made a terrible error, they committed a criminal act. If they had taken machine guns and gone in and taken these ballots by force, that would have violated state law. They violated the law with the decision they made, and they can be prosecuted when the impeachment is over. They can be prosecuted in court for that.

BuzzFlash : Would you have to prove for the criminal prosecution that there was a conspiracy? I mean, any judge can have a ruling anyone might disagree with and you could say it was bad legal thinking.

Charles Porter : That’s my point about the experts. These lawyers are experts in the law. Most of them are Constitutional lawyers. An article in the Yale Law Review has loads and loads of very fine authorities making the point so that it can’t be refuted that it was not an opinion on the law. And that’s what these lawyers who signed these petitions, and there are a great many lawyers who did that, from one hundred and twelve law schools all over the country. Those people have tenure, most of them do, if they don’t have it, they want it, and they don’t make such opinions public if they aren't sure their right, because want to go on in their career as law teachers. So that deserves a lot of weight.

BuzzFlash : Have you read Vincent Bugliosi’s book, "The Betrayal of America?"

Charles Porter :Yes.

BuzzFlash : He makes the argument, I think this is reflective of where the American public has been at, that the large majority of Americans simply cannot believe or could not believe that this lofty court, our greatest court in this country, whose justices are supposed to have the good of the country at heart, that there can be five justices who would abandon their responsibilities to the law and make a decision to appoint one of two candidates for President because they prefer that candidate. Bugliosi spends some time talking about the issue of character. When you’re on the court, you’re just another person, he points out. They’re just people on the court, and this is an issue of character in this case. Bad character prevailed and most of the population just looks at the court in disbelief that they could render such a decision with such political goals. What do you say to our readers as an attorney who’s been in court and as a congressman? How will Americans come over to your perspective given that they hold the Supreme Court with such high regard?

Charles Porter : Well, they have to be told the facts. Clarence Thomas, for instance, had a conflict of interest very clearly and he should have recused himself and not sat in on this case, but he knew that if he didn't join the opinion they wouldn’t have the five votes. Well, he has a particular guilt in this matter, and it showed that it was a conspiracy. When they get together and have an opinion and they work on this, that comes under conspiracy. But even if you couldn’t prove a conspiracy individually, we know that they wrote a political opinion, because the facts are so clear that no reasonable person could believe that they were doing anything else than helping George Bush become president, making sure he’d become president.

BuzzFlash : I believe Scalia, when the original court order was handed down to stop the recount in Florida, said that one of the reasons this needed to be done, perhaps even the leading reason, was a continued count might cause irreparable harm to George W. Bush. I guess from my own perspective, it’s so brazen a statement that it seems to indicate a political intent.

Charles Porter : Well Vincent pointed out that Gore was the injured party. By a long shot. So they just turned it upside down and brazened it out.

BuzzFlash : Would that statement in and of itself be something that could indicate intent for the purpose of the impeachment process? That the Supreme Court stopped the recount because it would "harm" the reputation of George W. Bush when he assumed the presidency?

Charles Porter : Well, obviously it was voted upon politically and that’s what a judge is not supposed to do. He is supposed to judge on the law, the decided cases, the statutes and everybody knows that, or they should know it, and when they do something politically, like Scalia, when he boasts about it, that he does sometimes, that is so brash and so despicable that it makes me choke with rage.

BuzzFlash : The exact words I have here. Scalia said the recount needed to be stopped because it would “threaten irrefutable harm to the petitioner (i.e., Bush) by casting a cloud on what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."

Charles Porter : I just laughed helplessly. You know, I have to say something here about where we’re starting from. We’re starting from less than ground zero. We don’t have even one member from the Congress of the United States favoring impeachment. We’ve got a long ways to go and people have to get outraged. They have to march in the streets and they have to say this will not stand.

BuzzFlash : And what is the next step of the Executive Committee of the Oregon State Democratic Party?

Charles Porter : The next thing that happens is on Sunday, July 22, when they are going to have a meeting of the Democratic members of the state committee, the leaders of the various counties and the members from the national committee will be there also, and I’m going to make a speech there and they are going to have a vote on this, and the chairman assures me that it is going to be, if not a unanimous vote, an almost unanimous vote, and then we’ll be the first state to call for impeachment of the five justice, and we’re going to challenge other states to get in line and come out for this.

But then the next question is we got to get focused on our members of Congress who aren’t believers at this point and say, “You’d better become a believer, because people are getting very much aroused and you’d better vote majority in the House to bring the articles of impeachment.?And go over to the senate and get your two-thirds of those who show up for the vote and some who wouldn’t show up, I’m sure. But two-thirds and then you’ve accomplished what must be accomplished.

This is the worst crisis in my opinion that this country has faced, in terms of maintaining us as a democracy. Because if they can get away with this, this is something they can say they’ve got a right to go in and stop the count of the votes, then the election is a farce. It’s in the hands of the manipulators and we might as well do what half the nation does right now and not vote. And that would be a tragedy.

BuzzFlash : What are some more things Democratic activists can do?

Charles Porter : The usual thing that our political system demands: you have to get a lot of money because campaign finance reform has not quite gone far enough. You’re going to have to have money to get your message out. That has to happen. They have to raise money to do it. We have to get it from every party, not just from the Democrats. But the Democrats are the ones who must take the lead on this because Republicans haven’t shown any sign of supporting it at this time.

BuzzFlash : Now once the July 22nd resolution passes, assuming it does, would that be something where people could write to their congressman saying here is the resolution from the Oregon State Democratic Party. We urge you to proceed to support impeachment proceedings. That sort of thing.

Charles Porter : Well, that’s what should happen, but more than just writing they should go and see the members of congress in their local offices and look them in the eye and say, “How do you answer this? How do you defend what these five people did??Stand up and say what they believe. Not "just let’s get through with it," which is the usual thing Republicans say, cause they don’t want to talk about it, for a good reason.

BuzzFlash : You should be very proud. It’s a courageous step that needed to be done, so thanks again.

Charles Porter : Not at all. I’m glad to have a chance to talk to people about it and I hope they will be looking into it and acting accordingly.

ASHBEL S. GREEN

June 27, 2001

Five of the justices voted politically in November's election, says the party's Executive Committee.

Thirty years ago, Oregon adopted the first bottle bill in the country.

Now, some Democrats want the state to be the first to call for the impeachment of more than half of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state Democratic Executive Committee last weekend voted to forward to the full central committee a resolution calling for Congress to conduct an impeachment inquiry into the five justices who voted last December to stop the presidential vote recount in Florida, a decision that ended the election dispute between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.

Jim Edmunson, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said he expects the full central committee to adopt the resolution in its July 22 meeting.

"It will be overwhelmingly supported," Edmunson said. "I'm not aware of a single Democrat who thinks the Supreme Court did a good job."

Edmunson said that as far as he knew, no other state Democratic party has adopted such a resolution. He hopes the vote will create some national momentum.

The impeachment campaign is the brainchild of Charles Porter, a former Democratic congressman from Eugene who said the justices in the majority -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor -- had violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution.

"They did it on the basis of politics," said Porter, who served two terms in Congress from 1957 to 1961.

Porter acknowledged that getting Congress to begin an impeachment inquiry is a long shot, but he remains optimistic.

"Oregon has been first in a lot of things," he said.

Republicans were unimpressed.

"The election is over. Let's get on with the nation's business," said Darryl Howard, executive director of the Oregon Republican Party.

JACK LESSENBERRY

July 3, 2001

... whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

... these five justices have gotten away with murder, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure that they pay dearly for their crime.
Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America, 2001

Long as we have been a nation, we have celebrated the Fourth of July with time-honored rituals : parades, red-white-and-blue bunting, a clumsy reading of the Declaration of Independence to an audience which understands perhaps half of it, and fireworks.

Backyard barbecues are also part of the sacred ceremony, which has undergone slight changes with the passage of time. In recent years, the actual reading of the document has been gradually replaced by a ritual in which one or more neighborhood children blows off one or more fingers, or perhaps takes out an eye, with illegal firecrackers. Oddly, this isn’t usually seen as a fitting commemoration of the glorious martyrs of the Revolution.

Leftist cranks used to suggest the American Revolution was really nothing more than an effort by rich landowners of the day to minimize their tax burden.

And while there was a little truth in that, this nation really was, all false sentiment aside, the best hope of mankind. Which is why I suggest you do your patriotic duty and buy and read a very important little paperback that should make you mad : Vincent Bugliosi’s absolutely marvelous The Betrayal of America : How The Supreme Court Undermined Our Constitution and Chose Our President (Nation Books, paper, $9.95).

This book is by far the most important of any about last year’s election. What makes it especially important is that Bugliosi is not just a scribbler but a super lawyer, the prosecutor who put Charlie Manson away. He’s no conspiracy-theorist crank, either; he is well-known for arguing Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. His last book, Outrage, was a bestseller that claimed O.J. Simpson was guilty as sin.

And he has put himself at some risk; he argues that the right-wing Supreme Court justices who handed the election to George W. Bush are absolute criminals who are essentially guilty of treason. These five justices, by their conduct, have forfeited the right to be respected, and only by treating them the way they deserve to be treated can we demonstrate our respect for the rule of law they defiled,?he writes.

This isn't just rhetoric. Calmly, methodically, he demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that there were no principles of law at stake; instead, the Criminal Five violated all the principles of states?rights and federalism they have cited for years.

They wanted only to make sure that their man won.?What makes this even more outrageous is that not only didn't he win, he would, almost certainly, have been installed anyway, by the House of Representatives.

But instead, the one branch of government previously above reproach soiled itself.

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is this nation's confidence in [this court] as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

That last quote isn't Bugliosi, by the way. That’s U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ?a conservative Republican appointed by that wild-eyed commie Gerald Ford. Stevens may have voted for Bush, but he is a man of integrity, a product of a tradition in which the nation’s courts didn’t steal elections.

This court did. Last week I was in Washington on the last day the Supreme Court was in session, and went over and sat in the most important courtroom in America. “Is this where they made Bush president??I heard a girl, who looked to be in her early teens, ask her mother. Which is exactly what I was thinking, less politely.

Last year, I would have looked up at the irregularly shaped chairs and thought : This was where Brown vs. Board of Education was decided. Not any more. What Bill Clinton did for the Oval Office as symbol, the five criminals have done for their chambers.

Now you might think Bugliosi would be getting a lot of attention ?especially since he is the author of the classic book on the Manson family, Helter Skelter. Instead, he is being virtually ignored.

“I have experienced rejections from shows that have always welcomed me in the past,?he told the Web zine Buzzflash. “They all give me the same mantra. ‘The election is over. Bush won anyway. No one cares anymore.’” He isn’t surprised; he knows, as many of us do, the essential conformist cowardice of most in the media ?and among liberals.

But Bugliosi isn’t giving up. Why? “Because this is the greatest American crime since slavery. The Supreme Court actually ruled that Americans don’t have the right to have their votes counted. This is worse than John Wayne Gacy.?lt;p>He’s right, you know. We shouldn’t accept it. Not even if the Shrub weren’t the most ignorant and unprepared president in a lifetime, a smug little right-wing puppet.

“We have to fight,?he pleads, in perhaps the most important pro-American essay since Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.?We know for a fact that Sandra Day O’Connor helped steal the election so Bush, not Al Gore, could name her successor.

So every American should urge all Democratic senators not to let Bush name anyone to the U.S. Supreme Court ?to kill any nomination this phony president sends. Refuse to accept this crime, just as African-Americans refused to accept Jim Crow. On this Independence Day, I cannot think of a more truly patriotic thing to do..