Ain't it ironic? People who have truly no respect for the rule of law were able to sucker-punch Al Gore because he does

It still seems to me inexcusable that Al Gore and the Democratic Party let themselves be outmaneuvered as well as outmuscled during the Florida vote-counting mess. I dunno, maybe they had difficulty believing that the Republicans would actually try to STEAL the election--which seems pretty naive considering how hard the Republicans were working, in plain sight, to do just that.

But once the fight found its way into the courts, and especially once the Supreme Court agreed to interfere where most of us thought it would surely see it had no business to, well, then Gore was in a position that I don't think I've felt so starkly until reading the remarks of his that Howie just presented.

If you believe in the rule of law, and a country with the rule of laws, then when you confront a point of law, the Supreme Court's word is the final word.

Do I have to underline the irony—that the Court's shocking and disgraceful machinations (oh, I'll bet a few justices really believed that by opting for a quick solution rather than a proper vote count, they were patriotically sparing the U.S. a period of uncharted trial and tribulation, which just goes to show that naiveté doesn't disqualify you from serving on the Supreme Court) wound up installing in the executive branch a cabal that truly DOESN'T believe in the rule of law, and certainly not in the rule of laws.

And I mean this quite literally. Oh sure, they'll mouth off about "the law" when it suits their purposes. But plain and simple, Chimpy and the people around him believe that the law, like everything else, is just a tool to be used to enforce their will.