No entity, least of all a great power like the United States, can continue to function effectively after losing its wits. But this is precisely what has happened as the United States entered a period of “historical madness,” to borrow John Le Carre’s phrase, following the triumph of the Machiavelli from Mayberry (Bush) over America’s Renaissance man (Al Gore). Bush’s “victory,” of course, is turning out to be America’s loss. As such, historians will likely mark Bush vs. Gore, The Alice in Wonderland judicial decision that effectively substituted the will of five unelected judges for the wisdom of the American people, as one of the most fateful miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated in American history. That judgment was unsound, unlawful, and most unwise.
Justice Scalia (an oxymoron if ever there was one) asserted without argument that those of us horrified by the sophistry in the Court’s reasoning should “just get over it.” But he had it precisely backward: it will be a long road back before America can recover from the looking-glass logic he and his ilk engage in.
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