Where to begin I

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Where to begin? I heard a few days ago on a chat show that the Florida Supreme Court had had some dealings with Judge N. Sanders Sauls and that they had disciplined him for misbehavior. I looked like crazy on Nexis to find a transcript of the statement, which I believe was from some Florida lawyer, but to no avail. So, fair or not, the New York Times scooped me.

Just think. This could have been the big scoop that put Talking Points on the map! But no dice.

Anyway, we’re obviously going to be hearing a lot about the Sauls-FLA Supremes feud in the coming days.

So what’s next:

1. The Bush team will have to reel in the warm-and-fuzzy nicey-nice card it’s been playing for the last few days with Gore. Back to James Baker and his trademark shiv in the gut.

2. What does all this really matter if the Florida state legislature can assign the electors anyway? It matters a lot. Because if nothing else it forces the Republicans to win ugly, very ugly. And that changes everything. Even possibly the dynamics in the Congress.

3. Republicans in the House go even more insane than they were before. Even before this happened Tom DeLay was threatening Clinton with shutting down the government unless the president caves on the budget.

4. Once Gore moves ahead in the recount, if he does (yes, a big if), then everything changes.

5. Okay, #4 was pretty damned obvious. Sorry.

P.S. Emerging spin watch:

All this time I thought the hand recount in Miami-Dade stopped because there wasn’t enough time to finish or because that Republican mau-mau intimidated the Board of Canvassers into stopping. But apparently I was wrong. According to Johnnie Byrd, Florida Republican state representative and co-chair of the select joint committee to appoint presidential electors, they did it to help Al Gore. Who woulda thunk it?. Here’s Byrd last night on Larry King Live:

Well, I think you can count these votes forever. The real question is, why did the recount stop in Miami-Dade and I think the reason that it stopped is that the vote trend was going toward Bush. So, we can count and count forever and litigate forever but to make sure that Floridians are represented in the Electoral College, we need to put some finality to it.

So that’s what happened.

P.P.S. Wait a second! If Gore wins, then Lieberman has to resign from the Senate to become Veep. Then Trent Lott is actually the Majority Leader again. Then what will I do? No more Parity Leader! (Don’t understand the reference? See this earlier post.)

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