Hail to the thief

The News Hits team has had a difficult time getting any actual news gathering done this week. The problem: Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that handed the presidency to George W. Bush, this column’s editor, Curt Guyette, has been stomping around the office, pissed to the max.

“Bullshit,” he’s been ranting to anyone who even pretends to listen. “Complete and utter bullshit.”

And that’s about as eloquent as he gets on the issue. But he also has a point. Except for the most partisan right-wing hacks, most legal experts agree that the Supreme Court decision was horrid. In short, it is utterly devoid of logic. Anyone who doubts this should go to filmmaker Michael Moore’s Web site, www.michaelmoore.com, and click on the piece titled “A Simple Q&A that Every American Should Read.”

But it’s not just the Supreme Court that has Guyette fired up. The way the pundits gushed at Al Gore’s concession speech and his call to rally around our new president “makes me want to puke,” says the MT news editor. “This is about more than partisan politics. It’s about democracy and principles and justice.”

All of which were the real losers in this election.

“Bush stole this election, plain and simple,” contends Guyette. “And there’s nothing we can do now to change that. But we don’t have to bend over and take it quietly, either. The first thing we do is show up en masse in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day to protest what just went down. After that, we go to work. There is a congressional election in two years, and we need to strike back with a vengeance. The only way to make Junior pay is to punish the Republican Party without mercy. Throw the bastards out, and replace them with people who will fight Bush every step of the way, from his insane reward-the-rich tax policies to his attempts to bankrupt Social Security to any Supreme Court nominees that would replicate the philosophies of Bush judicial role models Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

‘The other thing we must do is make sure the next time around every polling place in America has equipment that will guarantee all votes will be fairly counted. What happened in this election — especially in regards to people of color and the disenfranchisement they suffered — is an absolute outrage.”

For more, read this week's column by Keith A. Owens. Forget compromise and conciliation. The time to start fighting back is right now.