The Time Has Come

The road to the presidency is paved with good indentions… also known as dimpled chads, pregnant chads, and chads if you hold up to the light you see a little ray of hope coming through you just know it is a vote!  Which leads to; “The road to the presidency is paved with good intentions…. As in “he or she must have intended to vote for Bush or Gore!”  After all, every vote must count!   We must know the will of the people.  We must have a full, fair and complete count. 

But the standard changes if you are overseas in the military.  You must fill out the form properly, you must mark clearly, you must sign and date, you must have it witnessed and dated, and you must make sure that the postal people put a postmark in the envelope.  No benefit of the doubt, no trying to divine his or her wishes.  

Is there an adult in the area?  Is there any common sense here?  Ah, here comes the Florida Supreme Court, obviously an adult.  This all knowing, all wise group explains to us the meaning of the word “Shall”, it means “well maybe”. It explains the phrase “at the discretion of”, it means you have no discretion.  It explains the phrase “you will” means “you won’t unless I tell you”.  It explains the word “deadline” as to mean, well maybe.  Perhaps this group could explain to President Clinton the meaning of the word “is”. Not only have they redefined words, they have redefined their job.  Ms. Harris obviously does not understand the plain language of the law.  “Shall” and “must” are words only understood complete by men in women in black robes.   They redefined her job as well, not only redefined, but took over!  

The court explained with great wisdom that you cannot possible have a week deadline to get all the hand count done, especially in a large county.  So in there infinite wisdom they set a deadline of not a week, but 5 days!  There, an adult has stepped in and straightened this all out.   Makes me feel better!  And Al Gore as well.

 What? It is yet not clear?  Well this may help.  The well paid adults will step in… the lawyers.   Now we are getting somewhere.  We have all the “out of town experts” to help us in our travail plus bushels of back up lawyers to help us out of our quandary.  Two lawyer- Secretaries of State come in along with the hotshot lawyer who shot down Microsoft are to the rescue.  Surely, sense and clarity will come now.  The situation should now come clear to all including those poor voters in Palm Beach county who can’t quite read, can’t follow an arrow, can punch a hole properly and cry to their congressman when they think they may have voted for Pat Buchanan.  Perhaps these bright, rich lawyers they can teach those submarine tenders and the rest of the armed forces the importance of a postmark! 

Still not clear? The Vice President weights in after the Supreme Court steps in and says the recount can continue until the “right” vote comes in.  He intones with great piousness the importance of a full, fair count to determine the will of the people.  Well it is a full count, we have counted every vote twice, some for than that..  But does anyone think this is fair?  Just certain ballots to be counted, and counted with not just obvious marks but even the slightest nudge means a vote.   With other voters are held to a higher standard and a standard that they could not control, like a simple postmark? There was a report that one county threw out absentee ballots that they had in hand before Nov. 7th but didn’t have a post mark. Can anybody think this is right?  Can anyone think this is common sense?  I hope for someone, somewhere to stand up with some sanity, wisdom and finality. 

It is time for this thing to be over!  As more time goes on the whackier it gets.  We have supplied enough material for the late night crowd to last a lifetime.  We have had enough time to count, recount and recount.  It is time for Florida to stand and say enough is enough.  Come Sunday and the current final votes are certified, let’s fold up our tent and go home.  Gore may have finally got the recount he needed, or Bush may go 3 for three.  Whatever, the time has come.