Book Review of "The Betrayal of America"

The Betrayal of America by Vincent Bugliosi

Most Americans have forgotten, but in November 2000, we did not know who our President was after the election. There were issues with the ballots in Florida, and with the electoral college so close, the winner of Florida would become the winner of the election. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of the ballots in question, so that a clear winner could be decided.

At the start of the recount, Bush held a slim lead over Gore. As the days went on, Gore gained ground. Either Gore was going to overtake Bush, or Bush's claim to the presidency would be validated. Either way, it seemed logical to wait and have it play out. The US is, after all, a democracy, and one of the foundations of a democracy is that the people decide. Of course, Bush predictably sued to have this recount stopped, on the basis that he would suffer "irreparable harm" should the process continue. Incredibly, the Supreme Court overruled the Florida court and agreed.

This book is about the Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000 to stop the recount, and the author's outrage over the decision he argues was not based on any legal precedence or foundation in law or ethics. Bugliosi, who was a DA in LA in his previous life (and is most known for the conviction of Charles Manson), pulls no punches in his claims that the five members of the Supreme Court who authored the decision (no one knows for sure which justice authored it, as amazingly none put his or her name on it) did so out of pure selfish interests in wanting Bush to get the presidency over Gore.

The books is a disturbing look into how fragile the whole process is that we rely on for justice in America, even though most Americans think highly of judges and think a Supreme Court justice is above such petty motivesm, which may be misplaced. Most people have very negative opinions of lawyers and politicians. "Conventional logic would seem to dictate that since a judge is normally both a politician and a lawyer, people would have an opinion of them lower than a grasshopper’s belly," he said.

In the book, Bugliosi goes into great detail explaining the flaws with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision from a moral, legal, and political perspective, to paint a very compelling picture to anyone looking at it objectively that the election was given to Bush by the Supreme Court.

I personally don't blame Bush nor would say he is an illegitimate President (the Supreme Court says he is legit, and they are the ones who decide legitimacy in this country), but there is little doubt that the Supreme Court undermined the Constitution, the will of the people, and acted in purely selfish interests. "That an election for an American president can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country," Bugliosi wrote.

And for those of you who want to dismiss Bugliosi as a die-hard liberal who is just sour that Bush is President, he addresses those thoughts directly in the book as well, and Bugliosi is equally critical of the lawyers who represented Al Gore and argued to the Supreme Court, saying they "simply could not have been any worse."

This book is a reminder that even in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen, a few powerful people in well-placed positions can undermine everything right in front of our noses. Shockingly, most Americans supported the decision and have no problems with it, because their guy Bush got in, and that is all that matters (Bugliosi has some interesting comments about human nature being corrupted by personal self-interests).

Given the mess we are currently in with Iraq, one has to wonder what the course of history would have been if the state of Florida had been allowed to count every vote, as it legally and logically should have been allowed to do.

The book is based on an article Bugliosi wrote for The Nation in 2001. After this article, says Bugliosi, "came an unwelcome confirmation of something I had already concluded about the vast majority (not all) of human beings: They simply do not have sufficient character to rise above their own self-interests."

I completely agree.

http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-America-Undermined-Constitution-President/dp/156025355X