Sandra Day O'Connor Doubts Decision To Take Bush V. Gore

SCOTUS didn't follow the law - Didn't you read the article?  Your first clue should have been when SCOTUS said that their decision wasn't to set precedent for any future cases.  It was a one time deal.  We don't 'do' "one time deals" - The US legal system is based on the English common law system, which is based on court cases and precedent (this is in contrast to Napoleanic code law).  Nothing is law unless it's been vetted by the court.  

But not in this case.  

Elections don't belong to candidates; they belong to the People.  Gore shouldn't have had to call for a recount statewide, but everyone knows why he didn't, and it had nothing to do with "an unConstitutional recount of only a few districts".  There is no such thing, "unConstitutional recount of only a few districts".  By law, a candidate can call for any number of districts to be recounted, and the reason Gore didn't was because of what the Bush campaign was doing in the initial hours after it was clear that the election was too close to call.  As the possibilities for what was going to happen were listed by the news talking heads, Bush lieutenants were fanning out all over the air waves and SCREAMING down any statewide recount.  
That's how the entire campaign had gone - One Bush-Cheney bullying tactic after another.  Gore allowed himself to be manuveured and the American people lost as a result.  The Bush campaign's game plan was declare himself the winner with more votes, and then to stall and stonewall any recount of anything, and try to run out the clock.  It was the football paradigm.  

Gore's strategy was the baseball paradigm - To push for the counting of all legally cast ballots.  That IS the American way.  

There was more controversy about the 2004 elections, both on the national level and individual state elections (Washington, Ohio, New Mexico, etc.).  Everything from voter suppression and purging and impediments (and provisional ballot challenges) and election software manipulation to Bush's convenient terror alerts and Bin Laden sightings days before the election.  
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Sandra Day O'Connor Doubts Decision To Take Bush V. Gore

And what makes it all even worse; when you "look forward, not back".

When you refuse to impeach BushCheney because "Republica­ns will say it's just because they impeached Clinton".

When you refuse to prosecute neocons who lied to Congress so that they could attack Iraq because of oil and war profiteering.

When you don't uphold the laws of the land, when you don't drive discredite­d offenders out of the halls of power, they return to the public stage, only to raise the ante on the destructio­n they're willing to do to their opponents.

You can't go forward unless and until you've looked back, assessed and corrected what went wrong.

What has become crystal clear is that Obama and the DLC/Third Way/No Labels-Democr­ats have adopted the Republican­s' casual relationsh­ip with (and disrespect for) the rule of law.  Preserving the rule of law underpins how the US has been the most successful­, longest running democracy in world history.  

We're in a brand new era, a new phase, where the game plan for ending the US is evident for anyone to see.  And it begins and ends with the rule of law.  By refusing to investigat­e and prosecute Bush, by "looking forward, not back", Obama has broken the covenant that the American people have with their government­.

BushCo broke federal US laws; the rule of law applies to all Americans, elected officials, too. Elected officials especially­.

For a president of the UnitedStat­es not to equally apply the law to all people, presidents­, too, means that the grand experiment is over.  

Not prosecutin­g BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush. From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'Unitary Ex­ecutive', asserting that a president has the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislativ­e or judicial review of that position. Obama's already imposed a policy of 'indefinit­e preventive detention'­, again, imprisonin­g anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever, if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight. 

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understand­ing.
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Sandra Day O'Connor Doubts Decision To Take Bush V. Gore

The United States works, or it did work, because of the covenant We The People make with our government:  We agree to live under the rule of law in a democratic republic (where other people make the laws under which we agree to abide) as long as we get to choose who those people are who will be making the laws, and that will be applied to everyone.

It is under those conditions that we consent to be governed.

When we no longer trust in the process, when we no longer trust that the selection process by which our elected representatives is fair and accurate, or that the laws don't apply equally to all, that all bets are off.  
No government can stand once that happens.
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