In case you slept through November and December of 2000, here's a quick recap of the Presidential "election" of 2000:

Step 1: On November 7th, the citizens of Florida, using some antiquated voting systems,  cast their votes in the Presidential election, naively thinking that votes count in an election. Ha!

Step 2: The election is so close that Florida election officials are forced to do a recount-- they choose to do a machine recount.

Step 3: One side asks for a manual recount since the machine recount failed to register many votes cast in the election.  Florida election officials seem unable to do a manual recount.

Step 4: One Flordia judge, clearly opposed to any more recounts, pulls a page from the rulebook for Soviet Union elections and in lieu of counting the ballots, he has the ballots loaded into a Ryder truck and transported across the state! And then stores them away!

Step 5: Both sides continue to slug it out in court.....with the Electoral College clock ticking down....

Step 6: A court in Florida finally allows the votes to be recounted manually!

Step 8: With the deadline of December 12th closing in, the brilliant minds of the U.S. Supreme Court ponder their decision while the American public waits and waits.....

Step 7: The U.S. Supreme Court enters the picture and stops the recount a few hours into the process!

Step 9: And finally, at 10pm on December 12th, the Court decides! Judge Scalia pens the majority opinion. He writes that a manual recount cannot take place since it cannot be accomplished by December 12th! Wow. In a move that would make the courts in the old Soviet Union proud, the U.S. Supreme decides a Presidential election with circular logic.

Step 10: The U.S. Supreme Court presents the crown, uh, the Presidency to the winner! Who ever said that America had a democracy?

Step 11: And no one needs to know that two justices on the U.S. Supreme Court had a personal stake in who won the election. Judge Scalia's son and Judge Thomas's wife work in jobs close to the candidate who won the Presidential election.

End note: OK, I know the anger runs deep on this page, but please don't read this page and get bummed out about American democracy. A few idiots on the U.S. Supreme Court won't be able to destroy our democracy. America is a great country. Our democracy has endured many trials and tribulations before 2000 and it will endure this latest assult.

Need a little inspiration about America and our democracry? If you click here, you can read George Washington's Farewell Address

Or you can click here and read "The Life of George Washington" by David Ramsey. It was published only eight years after Washington died. Keep in mind that Washington believed so deeply in democracy and free elections that he resigned his commision and sought the Presidency through election, rather than become leader of the new country by acclamation.

If  you click here, you can read Alexis deTocqueville's "Democracy in America"

Or if you would like to read about the Presidential election of 1876,  you can read "The vote that made the President" by David Dudley Field, published in 1877.