Supremely Courted

If you have any faith left in the separation of powers, you will have that faith dislodged by this article in Vanity Fair (Part I - pdf) (Part II - pdf), which Digby at Hullabaloo links and discusses today, claiming:

Even after the impeachment sideshow, an event that solidified my belief in the lethal, fascistic nature of the modern Republican party, I was not fully prepared for the no holds barred approach they would take in this situation.

It is what led me to the point at which I am able to say without any sense of restraint or caution that I would put NOTHING past them --- even a staged terrorist attack. This is because every time I think they have some limits, they prove me wrong. As the old saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...won't get fooled again....

Gore and his team knew that the Republicans would fight with everything they had, but they still maintained some faith in the legal system to require basic fairness in something this important. And, even the most cynical of us thought that the egos of the Supreme Court justices would never allow them to make a purely partisan decision because history would remember them as whores.

If I had any political idealism left it died on the day that Antonin Scalia stopped judges from counting votes in Florida.

This article shows that fix was in from the beginning.

--Digby

I absolutely agree that at some point, anyone with eyes open will no longer be able to maintain the delusion that even the most rabid politicians would have scruples enough not to stage a terrorist attack murdering their own citizens. Read some history books. Not the ones they provide in public schools. The truth is simply that you would be wise to realize there is NOTHING these people won't do to maintain power.

Greg Palast did a great investigative job back when the 2000 vote fraud happened, but nobody in the U.S. would publish his work. If you want to read the original exposé of this American coup d'etat, get his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. As a plus, Palast's writing is entertaining and easy to comprehend.

Click graphic

Lots of good Palast articles about the coup are available on his website here.

Read the Vanity Fair article, if you can. It's a long read, and the .pdf files are copies of the actual magazine pages, so it's not the easiest thing to read (easier if you print it off). Also, the last bit of the conclusion is cut off (and I couldn't find a copy of it). Still, the information provided is good. It runs down the entire fiasco, concentrating on the Supreme Court's involvement and the repression of the black vote, and provides information that never made it to the light of day when the coup was going down. It also gives fair warning for what you might expect in November. It certainly won't be any more scrupulous. Nor legal.