Bush - a Coup d'Etat?

[CWL]

In his latest book, Stupid White Men, Mr. Michael Moore presents his views on how George W. Bush got to be President of the USA. His contentions are simply that Gore was the rightful winner of the election and that the American people are the subjects of nothing less than a successful coup d'état, involving the judges who made the final decision which put Bush in office. This is a serious allegation indeed.

Being a non-US citizen or resident I must confess (to my embarrassment) that I have not given this subject much thought since Bush was declared the winner of the election.

What I would be interested in would be a learned discussion on the topic - without any predjudice as to whether or not Bush is a suitable president.

The question I would like to see examined is simply: Is Michael Moore right in his contentions regarding a coup d'état?

 

[Iwentsouth]

No.

 

[CWL]

No.

Um... ok. Fine. Not much of an "examination", but thanks anyway for your opinion.

Care to elaborate?

Or perhaps somebody else does?

 

[Iwentsouth]

The United States voting system is probably differn't then where your from.

There were 13 states at first. The big states in population like New York wanted to have the numbver of votes for the US government to be based upon population. The smaller states wanted an equal number of votes for each state.

They comprimised and made the Senate with two representatives for each state. The House of Representatives is based on population. So the more populous states have more votes. A side note at the time slave states wantedslaves counted as people and non-slave states didn't want them counted. So they comprimised on that and slaved were 2/5th a person.


We take a census counting all americans. The votes are then given to each state for a total of 435. This take a lot of politics to work through. eventually it is decided if any states need a vote taken away and given to another state. They do not want thing to unbalanced.

Since we are a representative democracy and not a true democracy. We use our representatives to vote for president. There are a total of 538 representatives.

This means each states hold an election and whoever wins gets ALL that states votes for president.

If you combine all the states and add them together there are cases when the loser like Al Gore could get more total votes from the people, and the winner Goerge Bush can get more votes from the Representatives.

 

[RandFan]

In his latest book, Stupid White Men, Mr. Michael Moore presents his views on how George W. Bush got to be President of the USA. His contentions are simply that Gore was the rightful winner of the election and that the American people are the subjects of nothing less than a successful coup d'état, involving the judges who made the final decision which put Bush in office. This is a serious allegation indeed.

Being a non-US citizen or resident I must confess (to my embarrassment) that I have not given this subject much thought since Bush was declared the winner of the election.

What I would be interested in would be a learned discussion on the topic - without any predjudice as to whether or not Bush is a suitable president.

The question I would like to see examined is simply: Is Michael Moore right in his contentions regarding a coup d'état?

Where have you been? This issue has been beat to death but I suppose we can have at it again.

I understand your point but first let's deal with the term Coup d'Etat.

coup d'é·tat ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k d-tä)
n. pl. coups d'état (k) or coup d'états (d-täz)
The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

I can't see how the events of the last election could even be argued to constitute a sudden overthrow of government. We were in an election. Clinton was termed out and the Supreme court made it's decision before the end of his term as president.

Ok, so that's a distinction without a difference perhaps.

After all of the counts and recounts and analysis of the outcome, had a full hand count been allowed to continue Bush would have won according to the NYTimes and others. Yes, there are arguments that had the ballots been counted using certain methods Gore would have won in more instances than Bush. However it is unlikely that those methods would have been used IIRC. Apparently the method that Bush preferred would have given the election to Gore, again IIRC. The best argument I think is that since the Supreme Court denied those questioning the outcome to continue with the hand count (for arguably specious reasons) we will never really know what method would have been chosen and who would have actually won.

There is an argument that the issue was for the State of Florida to decide and that the Supreme Court was out of its jurisdiction. Giving us another one of those little ironies. Republicans are usually for States rights while Democrats usually favor Federal superiority (forgive my wording, you get the gist).

In any event, one cannot say categorically that had the Supreme Court not intervened that Gore would have won. Absent that fact it is at best specious to argue that Bush with help from a conservative majority of the Supreme Court overthrew the government.

 

[CWL]

The United States voting system is probably differn't then where your from.

There were 13 states at first. The big states in population like New York wanted to have the numbver of votes for the US government to be based upon population. The smaller states wanted an equal number of votes for each state.

They comprimised and made the Senate with two representatives for each state. The House of Representatives is based on population. So the more populous states have more votes. A side note at the time slave states wantedslaves counted as people and non-slave states didn't want them counted. So they comprimised on that and slaved were 2/5th a person.


We take a census counting all americans. The votes are then given to each state for a total of 435. This take a lot of politics to work through. eventually it is decided if any states need a vote taken away and given to another state. They do not want thing to unbalanced.

Since we are a representative democracy and not a true democracy. We use our representatives to vote for president. There are a total of 538 representatives.

This means each states hold an election and whoever wins gets ALL that states votes for president.

If you combine all the states and add them together there are cases when the loser like Al Gore could get more total votes from the people, and the winner Goerge Bush can get more votes from the Representatives.

Iwentsouth,

Thank you for your this enlightening account of the US electorate system. The Swedish electorate system is indeed different, but I was already aware of these differences.

I believe Mr. Moore's contention is however that Gore did in fact receive the majority of the votes in Florida, but that the results in question were obfuscated - ultimately through the decision taken by the Supreme Court. Are you aware of any hard facts supporting this contention or is it merely a loopy conspiracy theory?

 

[CWL]

Re: Re: Bush - a Coup d'Etat?

Where have you been? This issue has been beat to death but I suppose we can have at it again.

I must confess that I did not bother to look for any previous threads before I posted this one. Sorry about that.

I understand your point but first let's deal with the term Coup d'Etat.

coup d'é·tat ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k d-tä)
n. pl. coups d'état (k) or coup d'états (d-täz)
The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

I can't see how the events of the last election could even be argued to constitute a sudden overthrow of government. We were in an election. Clinton was termed out and the Supreme court made it's decision before the end of his term as president.

Ok, so that's a distinction without a difference perhaps.

Fair enough. Forget about the "coup d'état" bit. I suppose my question was really to what extent it could be argued that Gore should rightfully have been declared the winner of the election...

After all of the counts and recounts and analysis of the outcome, had a full hand count been allowed to continue Bush would have won according to the NYTimes and others. Yes, there are arguments that had the ballots been counted using certain methods Gore would have won in more instances than Bush. However it is unlikely that those methods would have been used IIRC. Apparently the method that Bush preferred would have given the election to Gore, again IIRC. The best argument I think is that since the Supreme Court denied those questioning the outcome to continue with the hand count (for arguably specious reasons) we will never really know what method would have been chosen and who would have actually won.

There is an argument that the issue was for the State of Florida to decide and that the Supreme Court was out of its jurisdiction. Giving us another one of those little ironies. Republicans are usually for States rights while Democrats usually favor Federal superiority (forgive my wording, you get the gist).

In any event, one cannot say categorically that had the Supreme Court not intervened that Gore would have won. Absent that fact it is at best specious to argue that Bush with help from a conservative majority of the Supreme Court overthrew the government.

...and you have answered it. Thanks Randfan. That was most informative.

 

[RandFan]

CWL,

Nova Land provided the following in this thread.

"Gore wins in 6 of 9 scenarios: <http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/gore_wins6of9.html>

If the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t stopped the counting

Dec. 9 count/Counties' own standards -- Bush by 493

If the four counties Gore wanted to count had finished

Gore's four-county strategy -- Bush by 225

If all counties agreed to use the standard acceptable to most

Statewide count/Prevailing standards -- Gore by 60

If the 63 counties ordered to count had used one standard Dec. 9

Dec. 9 count/Uniform standard-- Bush by 430

If the 63 counties ordered to count had used their own standards

Statewide count/Custom standard -- Gore by 171

If all counties had used the Gore standard

Statewide count/ Most inclusive standard -- Gore by 107

If all counties had used the toughest standard

Statewide count/ Most restrictive standard -- Gore by 115

If all counties had used the Bush standard

Statewide count/Bush standard -- Gore by 105

 

[RandFan]

Additional grist for the mill provided by Nova,

Palm Beach Post story "If clearly marked 'over-votes' had been counted"; November 12, 2001 <http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/overvotes.html>]

USA Today Conceals Key Information in Recount Story <http://www.fair.org/activism/usatoday-recount.html>;

AP Rewrites History of Florida Recount <http://www.fair.org/activism/ap-recount.html>;

and AP Clarifies Report on Florida Ballots <http://www.fair.org/activism/ap-florida-update.html>

link to Pitt law school summary of December 8 case and others related to Florida re-count

 

[Iwentsouth]

Gore motto "Every votes should count! Except of course our military absentee ballots. They should be thrown out."

Wonder if any of these recounts count the military votes thrown out.