Perspective: It's time for Al Gore to concede

Al Gore must concede as soon as possible. The people of the United States have remained calm and orderly, even in their demonstrations and arguments, but they will not accept a subversive overthrow of the democratic system. They know fraud when they see it. They will not stay quiet if Gore refuses to back down in the face of obvious defeat.

I speak for myself and reflect the views of many who have expressed them to me. We will not sit still for an illegitimate process.
-- David L. Rosenthal, Hollywood

We've had enough

Al Gore must give up his relentless, single-minded mission to wrest the presidency from George W. Bush no matter the damage being done to our country. I believe that most Americans view Gore's attempts to selectively count and recount ballots in only those areas that benefit him as a blatant effort to have the courts award him the office since the people of Florida did not. For Gore, it's not about fairness and democracy, it's about winning at all costs.

The time has come for all Americans to insist that the legal appeals and maneuvering end. I call on your paper to use your editorial influence to urge Al Gore to do the honorable thing and concede.
-- Bob Bryan, Seminole

Put pressure on Gore

George W. Bush won the original vote. He won the machine recount. He won when the absentee vote was counted despite the Gore campaign's despicable actions to have thousands of military ballots thrown out. And he still leads even with the manual recount being conducted in cherry-picked Democratic counties. Bush still leads despite the re-written deadlines of a Democrat-friendly Florida Supreme Court. He still leads in spite of the inclusion of hundreds of questionable dimpled chads.

I hope other patriotic Democrats will pressure Al Gore to do what's best for our nation and concede before he does any further damage to the system of government that our founding fathers established over 200 years ago to preserve our liberty. His naked ambition has gone on too long already. Enough is enough!
-- Ron St. Marie, Palm Harbor

Making Clinton look good

I guess we can finally see how much class and integrity President Richard Nixon really had. I remember when the ballot boxes in Chicago were stuffed so that John F. Kennedy would win in 1960. Did he put the county in a uproar when he found out? He showed how much he cared for the country by saying he knew what had happened (the cheating) but didn't want to divide the country by protesting.

Now we have a cry-baby trying everything he can to win, regardless of how it effects the country. I always knew Gore had no class. He has just reaffirmed that fact. He makes Bill Clinton look good, and believe me I can't stand Clinton.
-- Pauline Micklos, New Port Richey

State court on the job

I am appalled by the apparent lack of understanding displayed in several letters to the editor on Nov. 23 about the role of the courts in our three-part system of governance.

Civics 101: A legislature writes laws. Those laws are sometimes vague and flawed. The executive carries out those laws, interpreting them as needed. When there is disagreement between two or more parties about the meaning of particular laws, the courts resolve those disagreements. Lower court decisions can be, and are, appealed, reaching a final authority in the form of a supreme court. If a legislature disagrees with a court's ruling, it is free to start the cycle again.

The Florida Supreme Court was faced with a clear conflict in the state's election laws. When a recount is lawfully requested and granted, then the recount must be completed and the results accepted, otherwise the right to a recount is meaningless. Contrary to popular belief, the court, in its Tuesday night decision, did not rule in favor of Al Gore. It ruled in favor of the voters, and said so quite clearly. It preserved the voters' right to be heard. It is not at all clear, at this writing, that Gore will benefit from that ruling. He may or may not. But we, the voters, have had upheld our fundamental right to be heard.

The ruling was a model of strict constructionism, dealing only with a very narrow set of issues about the law itself. I expect it will be studied in constitutional law classes everywhere.

This election has made known to the world what was previously known only to a few. Florida has a lousy system for recording votes and for counting them. The final count to be reported by this afternoon will be the result of a flawed process. But it will be the best we can do under the circumstances. Let us accept the results, whatever they may be, and move on.

The Florida Legislature needs to convene, not to overturn the voice of the people, but to give us a better system for voting and for counting our votes. Since the Legislature in the past has found it an easy task to fund the desires of a variety of special interests, it should have no problem in funding a vastly improved election system.
-- Louis Paulson, Palm Harbor

Greens deserve thanks

I voted for Ralph Nader and now am so happy because we -- the Greens -- finally exposed this election farce. We turned out to be the good guys, not the spoilers.

The day after the election, my Green buddies and I felt as though we had put George Bush in office. We didn't realize that if we had all voted for Al Gore, this first-class political debacle would not have been exposed to the world. Our cheap marking and counting system disfranchising millions of voters would have continued to be covered up by our politicians, who spend billions on guns but support elections with peanuts.

We were led to believe that the United States was the squeaky-clean perfect white angel of democracies, but we Greens unknowingly exposed this crock and should get full recognition for a job well done.
-- Ed Corl, Gulfport

Standing by what's right

People are decrying George W. Bush for failing to show "leadership" and for failing to take the "moral high ground" because he has sought relief in our court systems and for not simply smiling and allowing Al Gore to manipulate the numbers to come out his way.

This is analogous to finding fault with a person who "makes a scene" by informing another person who is breaking the rules that his conduct is wrong. This what we used to teach our children to do! It's called standing up for yourself and what is right. I suppose a football coach would be guilty of not "bringing teams together" if he were to contest a bad call by a referee.

Standing up for oneself and standing by the rules, whether they be the rules of a children's game or the rule of law, are not signs of weakness or some sort of misdeeds. They are what's required of good citizens. I learned it in kindergarten. Why didn't everyone?
-- Mark T. Moore, St. Petersburg

A functioning system

Re: Be thankful for a political system that is working, letter, Nov. 23.

This letter is right on the money. The system is functioning. Sure it can be improved, but as the man points out, there are no tanks in the streets, no generals attempting to take over the Capitol. And except for some wacko talk show hosts on a local radio station, there is no talk of revolution.
-- Robert A. Ryan, Spring Hill

New czar won't help

Re: Exiting drug czar fought the war on drugs to no end or reason.

Robyn Blumner told us the depressing truth in this Nov. 19 column. Gen. Barry McCaffrey did all of the things she says he did, but he was only a "good soldier" carrying out the orders of a commander in chief who, in turn, accepted the prohibitionist orthodoxy of the U.S. Congress. McCaffrey was, more than anything else, the propaganda minister of the American drug war. When this role required compassion, McCaffrey sympathized; when denial was needed, he denied; when distortion was called for, he distorted; and when dishonesty was required, he lied.

His central lie was that the drug war is succeeding, that it is the price we must all pay to avoid something worse. He dismissed the innovative drug policies of Switzerland and the European Union as "disasters," when in fact the drug statistics of Switzerland and the EU are downright Utopian compared to ours. He told us that the "gateway theory" preordained a progression from soft drug use to hard drug use, reminiscent of how generals of the Vietnam era told us how the "domino theory" preordained the spread of Communism from country to country in Southeast Asia.

Anyone who hopes that a new drug czar will move us toward more enlightened policy will be disappointed. Congress is the reason we have no solution to this social problem. Any drug czar who contradicts Congress will soon be looking for different work.
-- John Chase, Palm Harbor

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