Hillary Rides Again
Just a day or so after ripping into a question, Hillary rips into her country.
On tour in Africa she compared Nigeria's disputed election to ours:
Our democracy is still evolving. You know we had some problems in some of our presidential elections. As you may remember, in 2000 our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of one of the men running for president was governor of the state. So we have our problems too.
Nigerian elections are about as corrupt as can be. Bringing up a tiresome whining point that many Democrats won't let go is ridiculous. She even seems to be suggesting that Jeb Bush being governor of Florida was part of a secret plan.
This points to a deeper problem so many seem to have (usually on the left)--the need to apologize for America. It doesn't even work as a strategy (others can see through our condescension, and showing weakness doesn't make any nation respect you more, especially not corrupt ones), but it seems to go beyond that.
Of course, it's always what someone else has done that they apologize for.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:23 AM
3 Comments:
Thats hardly an apology.
It's worse than an apology - it is a suggestion that our system is somehow corrupt. If anything, the 2000 election stands as a model of how to handle election disputes (what would the left have had happen? Should only Al Gore's forces been allowed to bring law suits and argue their case before courts?)
Our election was extraordinary in its openness - I can't imagine any count of votes of millions of people has been more closely or accurately made. We know every vote that was cast in Florida, including thousands of military over-seas votes that were not included, and thousands of votes that were counted despite the voters having made errors (not due to corruption) on their ballots. Our election proved that, when a vote among millions comes down to a margin of a few hundred, there is no way to know for sure who won (indeed, people themselves won't remember who they voted for, evidenced by the fact that polls regularly show more people voted for Obama than actually did).
The courts were allowed to step in under our system, rather than the military or bribed election officials. The Florida S.Ct. (made up overwhelmingly of Democrat appointed justices) ordered several recounts, however the rules by which they orderd the recounts to be undertaken were unconstitutional because they resulted in different districts counting questionable votes by differing standards. The US S.Ct. reached this conclusion by a vote of 7 to 2 (including at least 2 "liberal" justices).
It was a closer vote (5 to 4)that found there was not enough time left under the constraints of the Constitution to start yet another recount, and therefore the last recount (of several) would have to suffice to determine the winner. had the Florida S.Ct. heeded the US S.Ct ruling the first time, there probably could have been another complete recount, but subsequent detailed analysis by several organizations found that that recount also would have resulted in george Bush being declared winner.
Secretary Clinton does a great disservice to our country and the system we champion by her remarks.
The Jeb Bush crack is based on Katherine Harris, favorite bogeyman of those who won't let it go. I think that's an overly charitable version of the SCt's actions, DG, as evidenced by their attempt to say the decision would not have precedential value. But the comparison to Nigerian corruption is insulting and wrong.
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