‘Fix Was In’ for Bush in Florida Count

Re “1st Down for Bush--That’s What Counts,” Commentary, April 6: Brian C. Kalt compares the 2000 election to a football game, where the officials have to mark the ball somewhere, and George W. Bush just happened to get a favorable spot. I have no argument with that idea--there has to be a winner and a loser.

But what makes me and millions of others so angry is that the head referee (Katherine Harris) openly rooted for Bush; the league commissioner (Jeb Bush) was the brother of the candidate; the announcer who influenced perception by prematurely calling the play (John Ellis of Fox News) was a Bush cousin; the coach on the Bush sideline (Jim Baker) kept screaming that his opponents had no right to even question the call; and then the replay officials up in the booth (the Supreme Court Five) decided to stop reviewing the play because it might not favor their team.

Add to that a freaky bounce of the ball (the butterfly ballot that cost Al Gore thousands of votes), the way Gore fans couldn’t get tickets (inaccurate voter scrub lists, harassment of minority voters) and the free passes given to Bush fans (Republican election officials illegally correcting absentee ballot applications), and it’s easy to feel that in this particular game, the fix was in.

BARRY P. GOLD

Los Angeles

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Kalt’s football metaphor seems appropriate enough except for one disturbing anomaly: the U.S. Constitution mandates Congress as the referee of presidential elections, not the Supreme Court. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg correctly pointed out in her dissenting opinion, the Supreme Court had no right to take up the issue in the first place. That right is specifically reserved for Congress, and the fact that an activist Supreme Court effectively seized that power from Congress should be deeply troubling to all Americans who claim that we are a nation of laws.

TOM HIGGINS

Granada Hills

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Thanks for a realistic view of the Florida election. Kalt’s practical explanation was welcomed.

LARRY MALM

La Habra