Now that the votes have been "unofficially" but objectively counted in Florida and Al Gore clearly won, our legal system is going to inaugurate the loser, on order of the U. S. Supreme Court.

The 5-4 Supreme Court vote appointing Bush president turns the U. S. Constitution on its head. Article II of the Constitution says that the President appoints members to the Court, with the approval of the Senate. This was a classic way of balancing the power between the three branches. Nowhere does it give the Court the power to appoint the President.

The fifth, "swing" vote in the Court decision was Sandra Day O'Conner's. She stated that she wanted to retire next year, but would not do so if a Democrat were in the White House. She put personal convenience over the Constitution that she had sworn to uphold, a move that will forever disgrace her and the Court.

Republicans normally rail against federal intrusion in state matters. Their hypocrisy on this issue could not be clearer. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the state of Florida and stopped them from counting legal, clearly discernable ballots! What could be a more outrageous violation of states' rights?

On election night, the networks correctly projected Al Gore the winner in Florida, a projection that has now been proven beyond any doubt to be true. Tom Brokaw has publicly admitted that NBC's abrupt change recalling the first Florida projection and giving it instead to Bush, was based in part on phone calls from a member of the Bush campaign, who "assured" him that the GOP controlled Florida.

John Ellis, a key employee of Fox News working on projections based on data from the Voter News Service (VNS), has publicly acknowledged that, after the initial call for Gore, he discussed the numbers directly and repeatedly with George W. Bush on election night. The calls from Bush to FOX News on election night were numerous and have been confirmed by telephone company records. Mr. Ellis is both a supporter and a relative of Bush, which makes his admissions even more amazing.

Had the networks not changed their projection on election night, the cover used by the GOP would have been blown. Bush used the "revised" network projections to claim to be the presumptive winner, while simultaneously using legal machinery to stop the counting of the ballots in Florida that show otherwise.

Our ancestors fought the Revolutionary War and the Civil War in part to ensure the right to vote for all citizens. Citizens took to the streets in the 1920s to demand the right to vote for women, and did so again in the 1950s and 1960s to demand the right to vote for blacks. To piss away that right now is unthinkable.

This will not stand!