Judge Sauls Rules Against Gore

* While Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls was handing down his decision on Monday rejecting Al Gore’s election challenge we learned more about him than we did about the case he was hearing. Indeed, he could have argued the case for George W. Bush himself. He knew from the beginning how he was going to rule. He merely delayed the decision as long as he could so as to assist the Bush team to run out the clock. He could have slept through the entire case.

Now the Supreme Court of Florida must overrule this injustice. It is scary how this good ol’ boy rule of law still exists in this country. But this is a very good lesson for America. It further demonstrates why Gore must succeed in winning this election. We may never totally rid ourselves of this breed. But we can outnumber them and overrule their outdated methods.

S.B. BAKER

Los Angeles

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Tell Gore to concede. He lost again. We are tired of him.

JERRY MANRIQUEZ

Norco

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Both the GOP and the Democrats keep referring to the “will of the people.” But when 100% of Florida’s 25 electoral votes go to either Bush or Gore, neither of whom received even 50% of the state’s popular vote, it is clear that the people’s divided will is being flatly ignored. It’s the winner-take-all system, not the electoral college per se, that has put us in this mess.

What makes this even more of a travesty is that the winner-take-all system is not dictated by the U.S. Constitution.

JONATHAN HILTS

La Palma

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Much has been made of Gore’s having won the popular vote by 49% to 48% for Bush. There is another way to look at it. Bush won 29 states to Gore’s 20, leaving Florida out for the moment. That means that Bush won the states’ votes by 58% to 40%. Note that in four states Gore won by less than a percent. Only if he holds onto Florida will Bush have won any state by less than a percent.

GREGG BUTTERFIELD

Burbank

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Neal Gabler’s essay on political demonization (Opinion, Dec. 3) is an effort to clarify this problem of excessive rhetoric. Instead, his pious exoneration of the Democrats’ use of such tactics serves in the end simply to amplify and exacerbate it. He is caught in the very net he cast to snare the Republicans. The evil of demonization knows no party affiliation.

DAVID H. WALLACE

Newport Beach

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Gabler has it backward. After all, it was Gore who described the election as a choice between good and evil. It was the NAACP that ran a TV ad equating Bush to the men who dragged a black man to death in Texas. It was the Democrats who turned Prop. 187 from a matter of law, citizenship and public benefits into a racial issue (which didn’t fly because 45% of Latinos voted for it anyway).

A more subtle analysis than Gabler’s would note that in our secular society political correctness has replaced religion as the source of public piety. Democrats use PC as a bludgeon to paint anyone who disagrees with them as a racist, elitist, sexist Neanderthal--all the while whining about divisiveness. And with their influence over the major media megaphone, they rarely get called for it.

JIM BASS

Thousand Oaks

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Gabler’s article hit the nail on the head. The Republican Party has been practicing the politics of personal destruction since President Clinton’s 1992 election. I fear that the hatred spewing forth from so many GOP spokespersons during the Florida recount controversy is now an integral part of that party’s makeup.

Democrats and Republicans are, as human beings, equally fallible. What separates them is ideology, not good versus evil. Hopefully, a new generation of Republican leaders can come to the fore shortly who will have the ability to appeal to our better natures, not to provoke our worst instincts.

ROBERT E. TEIGAN

Simi Valley

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “There is no right of suffrage under Article II.” In other words, we don’t have the right to vote for president (Dec. 2).

Here comes the judge!

JOHN HEANER

Valley Village