A REPUBLIC, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT
I write this about 1 hour before polls close in California, and Jesse Jackson has already announced his attention to ask the courts to overturn the results. He argues that there are less people voting because there are fewer voting places as a result of the shortened time frame prescribed by law for this recall. "Disenfranchized," the reverend proclaimed, without rhyme. But, he doesn't care if anti-Davis voters are disenfranchised. In a surprising fit of honesty, Jesse admitted that there would be no challenge to the results if Davis prevails.

The recall law may have been a bad idea from the beginning, in that it is too democratic. The ancients knew that a pure democracy devolves into mobocracy. Tyranny of the majority. Men in the late 1700s realized this problem and therefore installed an electoral college and a representative government and no direct recall process for federal officers. And they designed a government of limited powers. And separated powers.

But, for years, the left has used the court system to dissolve the separation of powers and try to overturn the will of the people expressed through legislatures, by having laws declared unconstitutional, despite those laws' foundations in early U.S. history. Now, the left is trying to overturn elections by appealing to bureaucrats to read the minds of voters and interpret the will of the voter in Florida in 2000, by throwing out laws requiring a specific time for poll closings in Missouri in 2000 and by going to court to stop people from voting at all this year in California...all to insure their own desired results.

Unfortunately, the Republicans will soon be playing these same games. Abusing the process and trying to ensure their own victories.

Politics has become war by other means.

From "campaign finance reform" that intends to actually forbid political speech and prevent people from supporting campaigns and candidates, to campaign war rooms, opposition research and last minute surprise news stories about gropings or DWIs, to spin doctors and debate shows where no truth is revealed or admitted to even exist, our Republic is getting harder to keep. If the 2004 election doesn't become more civilized, then I hate to see the election 2008.