Democratic Underground - The only thing in my cubicle that gives me away?

A column by Eric Zorn, written the day after Gore conceded the 2000 election. I tacked it to the wall of my cubicle the day it was printed, took it down in the aftermath of 9/11, and then put it right back up when Bush started his rush to war with Iraq.

It saddens and angers me every time I read it. I hope the mods don't take me to task for putting the full text here- it's just too good to snip and clip down to 4 paragraphs.

WE'LL HAIL THE NEW CHIEF WHEN WE'RE READY
12/14/2000
by Eric Zorn

Speaking for those of us who have not been cutting out recent Tribune editorials on the Florida mess and happily affixing them to the fridge with magnets in the shape of little elephants, let me say this:

George W. Bush will be the president of the United States. But we will not be badgered, belittled or soothed into accepting him, uniting behind him, granting him legitimacy or respecting Tuesday's ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, no matter how many contemptuous, argumentative e-mails we get or how many political leaders, ours and theirs, suggest that we take the high road.

We're mad as hell. Just like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we pointedly decline to affix "respectfully" to our dissenting view--that powerful partisans abused their authority and discretion in order to make sure that possibly decisive ballots were not examined and counted (the name as published has been corrected in this text).

We think that stopping the recount Saturday was "not only legally wrong but also most unfortunate," that most of Bush's legal team's argument Monday was "wholly without merit" and that Tuesday's election-ending, 5-4 ruling was "another erroneous decision," to quote, in order, Justices Breyer, Stevens and Souter.

We'll get beyond it, eventually. But we will not be hurried by slogans, by repetitions of familiar pro-Bush arguments or by invective from our political opponents--the folks who, last we checked, were still picking at the impeachment scab and fuming about a legal outcome that didn't go their way.

Right now, we're in the position of kids whose mom has just married a guy we don't like much, yet who insists we call him "Dad."

He wasn't our choice. We consider his claim to the position dubious. We'll grudgingly afford him the title because we don't really have much choice, now, do we?

We will defer to him, but we won't pay him deference.

We won't be browbeaten or shamed into loving him in the name of unity; we won't grant him the emotional perquisites of legitimacy on someone else's say-so, whether that person's name is Mom or Albert or Antonin.

But we will, by and by, I hope, set aside the irreconcilable and unrevisitable disputes of the past. We will give the guy a chance, if not for his sake then our own: How are we going to make the best of what looks to us to be a bad situation? Never mind him, what's in our interests?

We won't give him our respect, but we will give him the opportunity to earn it. His part of the bargain will be to exhibit grace: not force the issue too hard; not presume to claim any territory he has not first conquered.

And if he proves worthy, someday we'll find ourselves referring to him by the title he prefers without the word sticking in our throat. Whole weeks will go by without the bitter memories of how, back to the political realm, we were called seditious crooks and crybabies for backing a legal challenge to a very close election.

But we won't totally forgive and forget.

To those who now warn angry Democrats not to let lingering acrimony destroy them, as happened with the Republicans during their extended orgy of Clinton hatred, I ask, "Oh, you mean the Republicans who now control the House and the Senate and the presidency, the majority of state governments, talk radio and the U.S. Supreme Court? Those self-destructive Republicans?"

And to those who purr that even a closely divided Supreme Court decision ought to be revered by those on the political left, I ask, "Oh, you mean the way the right has revered the court's 5-4 decisions in 1992 to uphold Roe v. Wade and in 1989 to uphold flag desecration as a protected form of speech? That kind of reverence?"

And to the editorialists who took a contemptuous whack this week at "the amateur Earl Warrens of the Florida Supreme Court." I ask, "Oh, you mean the former U.S. chief justice who did so much to advance the cause of minority rights and civil liberties while odious lawmakers dragged their feet? That Earl Warren?"

We hope to channel our indignation toward politically productive ends.

George W. Bush will be the president of the United States. We can accept that. Just give us time.

Look for more good stuff at http://www.ericzorn.com/

-MR

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