Who's rewriting history?

[pecunium]

Antonin Scalia (of whom I am not fond, mostly because I think him either a sham, or a hypocrite. A clever thinker, but at some level a fake) has said the reason the Court had to interfere with Florida's State Laws, and he had to take part in a case at odds with his entire judicial history; which had a decision at odds with his past history, as written in opinions both under his name and with his concurrance, as well as being and oddity, in that it was specifically (again, against his express philosophy, as stated in public) it had no precedential standing, as well as being decided on issues the appellant didn't raise, and which weren't explored in argument (mostly because the justices had shown a strong tendency in recent years to discount such claims, but this one time they not only decided it was a big deal, but four of them (four, out of five) voted in a way diametrically opposed to their past history on the issue was because Gore made them.

Yep, it was all Gore's fault, ""The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble." He said that at the Time Warner Center last night.

Now, putting aside the entire, "lookng for trouble," thing (and the conflict of interest one might suppose from Thomas having a daughter (IIRC) who worked for Bush, and O' Connor saying that now he was elected (before the brouhaha) that she was glad, because now she could retire) because we can't know (barring the minutes of some secret meeting where they got together and said, "How can we be rid of this troublesome democrat?"), but the first part, the part where he says Gore dragged this into the courts, I have three words.

Bush versus Gore

It's a very simple formula, the person who initiates the suit, gets named first.

Bush versus Gore

Not Gore versus Bush, but

Bush versus Gore.

So who's fault was it?

Comments

[bkmichele.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that even though I disagree with Scalia's opinions substantively about 90% of the time, I do have some respect for him after hearing him speak. He came to my law school in February of '04 and taught a Con Law lesson and also gave a speech at night in Balboa Park (which came complete with quacking protestors as this was during the Cheney/Scalia Huntinggate). He's intelligent, and a captivating speaker, and I have to hand it to him for actually answering questions. Students were able to ask him questions on hot issues, including Bush v. Gore and he didn't dodge a single one. Justice Ginsberg had visited the school in February '03 and apparently she refused to answer questions, always saying that there was a case in X circuit that might be before the Court in a few years and she couldn't speculate.