The Week - disputed vote in Florida; this and other items are discussed

National Review, Dec 18, 2000

Making the rounds: Joe Lieberman? All yarmulke, no Torah.

Writers of political science fiction spinning out endgame scenarios often assume, as a premise, the existence of independent Democrats. Maybe the Democrat-dominated Florida supreme court will rule this way, or a 50-50 split U.S. Senate will vote that way. If the impeachment saga is a guide, those Democrats will be as scarce as yeti when it comes to the crunch. Remember Sen. Moynihan, the Senate's scholar, well known to dislike President Clinton? Sen. Byrd, sturdy old keeper of the Senate's traditions? Sen. Lieberman? All voted the party line. If past is prologue, look for the Democrats' motto to be E pluribus unum-which, as Vice President Gore will now know, means "Out of many, one."

The Gore campaign's well-publicized efforts to disqualify overseas military ballots apparently escaped the attention of the federal agency charged with protecting the rights of military voters. The Department of Justice has ignored the evidence that military ballots were systematically targeted for disqualification by Democrats. In Florida counties carried by Gore, 60 percent of overseas ballots were rejected, while only 29 percent were disqualified in counties where Bush prevailed. Florida is under a federal consent decree owing to the state's past mistreatment of overseas voters. Unlike her predecessors, Janet Reno has been derelict in her duty to protect their rights. Add it to the list-Reno Dereliction of Duty, Number 93.

Duly noted: When Democrats strained to disallow every possible military absentee ballot in Florida, when the balance of the election potentially hinged on those ballots, when Republicans fought back in a way that accorded with their general defense of the institutions and the culture of the military . . . John McCain was nowhere to be found.

In the words of the old spiritual, more or less: "O Lieberman, where you gonna run to / On that judgment day?" Week by week, during the election and its aftermath, the senator has dismantled his persona in the interests of political expediency: toadying to Hollywood moguls; offering to meet with Louis Farrakhan; absorbing shock when the Gore team's plans to nix military absentee ballots blew up in their faces. The most disturbing aspect of his performance has had to do with his religion. Sen. Lieberman is a devout Jew, who had a record of expressing moral concerns in the public square. By picking him, the Democrats sought simultaneously to energize the Jewish part of their base, and to appeal to practicing Catholics. Candidate Lieberman, in practice, insulated Gore from criticisms due a reckless Middle East policy, and cheapened or sold out every moral concern he ever had. He was not a religiously informed public man; he was, like the comic social directors at old Catskill resorts, a tummler. If he loses, he will return to the Senate despised by Republicans and less respected by the media. If, by some chance, he becomes vice president, he can look forward to four more years of humiliating acrobatics. Is it too late for BuckPac to endorse Lowell Weicker?

Sean Wilentz is at it again. Eleven years ago, the Princeton professor was one of many historians who signed a legal brief to the Supreme Court that claimed, on the basis of falsified evidence, that abortion was a common-law right at the time of the American founding. Two years ago, he helped organize a group of historians that issued a statement on impeachment. That statement argued that impeachment was "explicitly reserved . . . for high crimes and misdemeanors in the exercise of executive powers." As critics observed at the time, that would mean that a president who made a habit of robbing banks could not be impeached; and the Constitution is quite silent on whether offenses must be committed in the exercise of executive powers to warrant impeachment. Now Wilentz is back, with two more public statements about the post-election wrangling in Florida. This time his signatories are not limited to historians, but also include such Celebrity-Americans as Rosie O'Donnell and Robert De Niro. They call, not just for a recount, but for a revote in Palm Beach County. This would "remove any hint of inaccuracy in the final result." Too bad that it would also appear to violate the Constitution's provision that the presidential election has to be held on the same day everywhere. Prof. Wilentz is a well-respected scholar, but his public record on constitutional questions is now 0 for 3. Might we suggest a moratorium on constitutional statements from him?

Paul Begala takes umbrage at the suggestion that the election revealed a cultural divide between the decadent, Democratic coasts (represented in some maps as blue) and a virtuous Republican heartland (red). Writing for msnbc.com, Begala discerned "a more complex picture. You see the state where James Byrd was lynch-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart-it's red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay-it's red. You see the state where right-wing extremists blew up a federal office building and murdered scores of federal employees-it's red." Would it be churlish to point out that the blue zones encompass at least their share of aberrations and outrages? For example: the hacking to death of Yankel Rosenbaum by a mob shouting "Kill the Jew!" (New York), the Rodney King riots and O. J. Simpson's two free murders (California), the hounding of two fathers who had the temerity to tape a "youth-only workshop" at which boys in public schools were instructed in techniques of sodomy (Massachusetts), the nation's last attempt by state authorities to restrict voting by race, struck down just this past February by the U.S. Supreme Court (Hawaii) . . .