A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 37

Until the 2000 presidential election I had never heard of a "hanging chad."  It turns out it's the part of a ballot that you punch out that doesn't totally detach.  Hanging chads and other questions in Florida held up the final decision on the 2000 presidential race for weeks.  Al Gore won the popular vote and Bush, thanks to Florida, won the electoral vote.

Republicans exerted tremendous effort to steal the election for Bush.  They "protested" outside offices where ballots were being recounted.  When you look at photos of the "protesters" you see readily identifiable Republican operatives in the crowd.  But the biggest ace they held was a friendly Supreme Court that ruled in favor of Bush and stopped the recounting of ballots in Florida.

George W. Bush was one of the least qualified people to enter the White House in the modern era.  He had been a cheerleader in college, got preferential treatment to get National Guard duty and avoid Vietnam, was known as a drunk and drug user, got a sweetheart deal to own part of the Texas Rangers baseball team, got elected Governor of Texas, where the governor is mostly a figurehead, signed lots of execution orders to give Texas the dubious distinction of executing more people than anyone else, and then sneaked his way into the White House.  This country paid a major price and so did the people of Iraq.

More to come