January 1, 2001

IN THIS ISSUE
2 LETTERS
EDITORIALS & COMMENT
3 NO HONEYMOON
4 A FORCE TO RECKON WITH
Jonathan Schell
5 THE GOD THAT FAILED
Herman Schwartz
6 PARTISANSHIP RULES
Eric Foner
7 PRINCE AL
David Corn
7 IN FACT
8 HURRAH FOR OLD EC!
Robert Grossman
26 WHY THE POLLS WERE WRONG
Anna Greenberg
COLUMNS
6 ON LATE-TERM PRESIDENTIAL
TRAVELS
Calvin Trillin

The Nation since 1865.

9 MINORITY REPORT
Rogue Washington
Christopher Hitchens
10 SUBJECT TO DEBATE
This Is Your Country on Drugs
Katha Pollitt
ARTICLES
11 FATHER GREENSPAN LOVES US ALL
But as the bankers know, he loves some
of us more than others.
William Greider
18 BUILDING COMMUNITY UNIONS
In Stamford, Connecticut, organizers are
putting the movement back in labor.
Janice Fine
22 FREE TIME FOR A FREE PEOPLE
Theres a growing movement to add
livable hours to calls for a living wage.
Arthur Waskow
Illustrations by Steve Brodner,
Wes Bedrosian

VOLUME 272, NUMBER 1

BOOKS & THE ARTS

27 ARNOVE, ED.: Iraq Under Seige
GRAHAM-BROWN: Sanctioning Saddam
CORDESMAN: Iraq and the War of
Sanctions
CORTRIGHT AND LOPEZ, EDS.: The
Sanctions Decade
PREEG: Feeling Good or Doing Good
With Sanctions
HAASS, ED.: Economic Sanctions and
American Diplomacy
SIMONS: Imposing Economic Sanctions
CONLON: United Nations Sanctions
Management
Joy Gordon
32 MYLES: Cool for You
Chris Kraus
34 ECONOMICS FOR CHILDREN
Eduardo Galeano
35 STEPHAN: Communazis: FBI
Surveillance of German Emigr Writers
Noah Isenberg
36 THE FISH IN THE WINDOW (poem)
Robert Bly

EDITORIALS

No Honeymoon

n his speech conceding the presidential race to George W. Bush,

Al Gore spoke of the need to put aside partisan rancor. Saying, While I strongly disagree with the Courts decision, I
accept it, Gore urged the country to unite behind our next
President. But such an outcome to the Florida debacle is neither
likely nor desirable. Bush takes office with the taint of an election
wrested from the popular will and bereft of honest accounting.
The Supreme Court administered the coup de grce by shutting down the Florida recount, but that only confirmed what has
been evident for weeks: Between the intertwined interests of the
Brothers Bush, the Florida legislature, the GOP Congressional
majority and the Rehnquist Court faction, never has electoral
power shifted so far, so fast, from the hands of the people.
Even in this cynical atmosphere, though, the Court majoritys
disingenuous invocation of equal protection to end the counting
of unrecorded Gore votes stands out: As Justice John Paul Stevens
wrote, the majority effectively orders the disenfranchisement of
an unknown number of voters. This after the Florida Secretary
of State expunged from the lists thousands of legitimate voters
wrongly identified as felons; after credible allegations of intimidation of African-American voters; and after documentation of
the way poor and African-American voters in Florida are disproportionately served by unreliable voting machines. In Jeb Bushs
Florida, equal protection, evidently, means only the equal right to
have your vote not counted and then to have your complaint never
seriously investigated by a George W. Bush Justice Department.

The Bush postelection campaign was rife with such conflicts

of interest up to and including the Supreme Court itself, in which
two Justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, maintain close
family ties to the Bush operation. These conflicts reveal how incestuous the emerging Bushocracys base is. The postelection also
exploded the myth of Bushs moderation. Bush lawyer Ted Olsons judiciary-bashing argument to the Supreme Court and James
Bakers furious rhetoric reveal how Bush may well emerge indebted to the most conservative and divisive elements of his party.
There will be much talk of reforming the countrys voting
technology. But mechanics are secondary. We need deep prodemocracy reforms that stop the spiraling concentration of power
into an ever-smaller number of hands. These reforms include getting money out of politics as well as passing voting reforms such
as instant runoff and proportional representation, and, in the longer
term, abolishing the Electoral College (see the box on page 5).
Are these effective politics? Gore himself roused far greater public
loyalty post-campaign defending the right to vote than defending
his own record in the campaign proper.
Bush called on the country to put politics behind us. But
in the absence of war or other grave threats, why should we ignore the deep political differences in this countrydifferences
that grow out of the economic and power inequities highlighted in this postelection period? It would be a mistake if the Democrats were to continue the centrist politics of the Clinton years,
thus betraying an electorate already shorn of its most basic right:
the right to choose its own leader. The incoming Bush administration is gearing up to pursue its agenda; Democrats must do the
same. This is no time for a honeymoon.

The Nation.

January 1, 2001

COMMENT

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uesdays Supreme Court decision giving the presidency to

George W. Bush, delivered in the dead of night in an opaque,
anonymous opinion rendered by Justices who gave no oral
presentation from the bench (as they usually do) but instead
appropriately snuck out of the Court building through the
garage, leaves the country facing a worrisome political future. The
damage done to the courts and to the rule of law by the Supreme
Courts judicial overreaching into politics and the damage done
to democracy by the sudden interruption of a vote count (will
the distressing, unprecedented televised image of vote-counters
physically putting down ballots they had been examining become
the symbol of an era?) have been commented upon by many observers. The politics of the struggle have been harder to assess.
From the start, the contest presented a puzzle. Why, when the nation as a whole was prosperous, at peace and thoroughly unexcited by the candidates, each of whom belongs to the moderate
wing of his party, did the two sides wage such ferocious political
war? The easy answer is that the campaigns, their huge momentum unchecked by an election that had failed to produce a result,
were simply propelled onward into the narrow confines of courtrooms, which therefore became the scene of a disproportionate
sound and fury. It was comforting to reflect that the country at
large, though entertained by the spectacle, was scarcely concerned
about itrefusing, according to poll results, even to regard it as
a crisis. How dangerous could the quarreling be if it was the
product of sheer statistical accident and reflected no deep, real
division in the country?
As the struggle continued, this sanguine view became harder
and harder to maintain. Each party, aided by its army of lawyers,
of course was doing its partisan best to beat the other in court,
but before long it became clear that something more serious and
frightening was occurring. As noted previously in this space,
one party, the Republican, was prepared to go to extraordinary
lengths, both constitutionally and in the streets, to win. First,
the Bush campaign began to accuse Gore of seeking to steal the
election. Second, the Republicans launched a vitriolic campaign
to discredit the Florida Supreme Court when it delivered a ruling unfavorable to the Bush campaign. Bushs Florida manager,
former Secretary of State Jim Baker, called the courts ruling in
favor of hand counts unacceptable, and John Feehery, spokesman for Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, called the judges
partisan hacks, while House majority whip Tom DeLay, speaking the language of war, announced, This will not stand. Third,
Republican Congressional staffers and Bush operatives, led by
New York Congressman John Sweeney, mounted the riot in the
Miami-Dade County building to stop a recount that looked as
if it would favor Gore; the recount did, in fact, stop. Fourth, in
an act of remarkable effrontery to democracy, the Republicandominated Florida legislature organized itself to choose a slate
of electors for Bush, whatever Florida courts might say. Fifth,
DeLay and others in Congress began to threaten that if Florida
did not go the way they liked, Congress might take the matter
into its own hands. These latter two steps were the substance of

January 1, 2001

The Nation.

COMMENT
the Republican warning that if the Supreme Court didnt settle the
matter, a constitutional crisis would follow. The Republican message, in other words, was that if they were not allowed to win, there
would be a constitutional crisis because they would produce one.
While all this was going on, the promises of bipartisanship that
had been such a prominent feature of the Bush campaign were
melting away. Such acts as the Florida legislatures decision to substitute its will for the will of the voters and the baseless charge that
Gores legal maneuvering constituted theft of the election hardly
showed a bipartisan spirit. In the meantime, the Republicans in the
Senate, which is divided 50/50 with the Democrats, refused any
institutional power-sharing arrangement and elected some of their
most conservative members as leaders. DeLay said that with the
Republicans in charge of all three branches of government they
would set the agenda, and Senator Phil Gramm of Texas announced, I have been waiting all my life for a Republican President and a Republican Congress. Something of what this resolve
meant on the practical level was revealed in a number of news
stories. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Republican hard
right was gearing up to staff the White House and the courts with
its members. Most people are focusing on fumigating the Justice
Department, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for
Tax Reform. Meanwhile, the tide of money on which Bush floated to the White House was rising to the rafters in Republican
Washington. For instance, the contest within the Republican Party
for the chairmanship of the House Commerce Committee is, in the
words of Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times, between Billy
Tauzin of Louisiana, who is more closely allied to the Baby
Bells, and Michael Oxley of Ohio, who is allied to the long distance carriers. The Wall Street Journal notes that a veritable
bidding war erupted last year, as several candidates for chairmanshipsraised millions of dollars for GOP congressional candidates. Now Hastert, fearful of cutting short the bidding war, has,
according to legislators, been staying mum on how chairmanships will be decided.
It is true that the extreme actions of the Republicans during the
postelection crisis did not find much active support among the
people (a majority of whom consistently favored the Florida recount), just as the partys impeachment effort a year ago failed to
find such support. As we can now see, however, it is a mistake
to suppose that political extremism is dangerous only if backed
by popular fervor. The Republicans impeachment campaign
failed. But their postelection campaign succeeded. The Republicans, though enjoying the slenderest of legislative margins, will,
as DeLay triumphantly pointed out, be in charge of the presidency
and both houses of Congress. To this, in view of the recent ruling,
its tempting to add the judiciary. Popular support is the currency
of democracy, but it is not the only currency. History shows that
militant, highly organized, tightly disciplined parties can have
their way even in the midst of apathyor, perhaps, especially in
the midst of apathy. Power, as the founders of this country well
knew, is a mighty temptation. Money is another. Put the two together, and you have a force to reckon with. JONATHAN SCHELL
Jonathan Schell, The Nations peace and disarmament correspondent,
is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute.

The God That Failed

upreme Court buffs are sentimentalists. We apotheosize the

Court. When it decided to review the first Florida Supreme
Court decision and other lawyers, non-lawyers and foreigners
all insisted that the fix is in, the experts, including myself, confidently assured them that there was no federal question and that this statesrightsoriented Court would quickly dump
the case. We were half-right; there was and is no federal question,
but one way or other, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his four
allies were going to make sure that George W. Bushs shrinking
lead would survive, even though a fair recount would probably
make Al Gore the winner.
When Gores lawyers began the contest phase of the proceedings on November 27, they ran into Judge N. Sanders Sauls, a
Republican appointee marked by scandal and, to no ones surprise, lost. When a 4-to-3 majority of the Florida Supreme Court
reversed Sauls and the recount began, quickly shrinking Bushs
margin, it was time for the heavies to move back in.
First, the Bush lawyers asked for a stay. Within a few hours
after the briefs were filed, Rehnquist & Co. brought the recount
to a screeching halt with a 5-to-4 stay. When John Paul Stevens
wrote a dissenting opinion, Antonin Scalia announced that the
majority had already concludedbefore hearing argument and
within a few hours of reviewing more than 100 pages of briefs
that there was a substantial probability that Bush would win.
Scalia gave two reasons for the stay: to insure Bushs legitimacy
if he won and to prevent degradation of the ballots because of
frequent handling. Legitimacy, however, is a political matter.
What business is it of judges to insure legitimacy by blocking an
accurate count of who actually won? Second, as a Florida electoral
expert told the Miami Herald, it is not, as Scalia claimed, generally agreed that each manual recount produces a degradation of the
ballots, because the ballots are made to be handled frequently.
Mondays argument itself was almost anticlimactic except for
one matter: Since the Florida court had made it clear that it was
relying solely on the Florida statutes, what was the federal question? The answer came in a little-noticed throwaway line in a Bush
briefthe equal protection clause. The issue had not been raised
in the Florida Supreme Court, and normally the US Supreme
Court will refuse to hear such an issue. But not this time.
And what was the argument? That the standards adopted by
the Florida Supreme Court for determining which votes should

WANTED: THREE GOOD ELECTORS

ast week we urged three Republican electors to do the right

thing: Switch their vote to Al Gore, thus giving him the 270
votes in the Electoral College he needs to become President;
and presumably thereby jump-starting a national movement to
abolish or reform that arcane institution. Now that the Supreme
Court has closed off all other avenues for honoring the choice of
a majority of the voters, we hereby redouble our invitation.

The Nation.

January 1, 2001

COMMENT
be countedthe clear intent of the voterswas fine, but it
didnt provide substandards. There would thus be variations in
the way votes would be recounted from county to county and
maybe within a county from one team to another.
As Justices Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer pointed out, the Florida courts failure to specify the precise manner for determining the intent of the voter is not unconstitutional. A majority of the states use the same intent standard,
and no one has ever suggested that it was unconstitutional. Indeed, county-by-county variation is inevitable, given that optical
scanners are used in some counties and punch cards in others.
Obviously, the Florida legislature knew this when it adopted its
electoral law. Yet it did not try to refine the test any further, though
other states have done so. In any event, as Stevens pointed out,
the disparities would probably have been eliminated because a
single judge would resolve all objections.
Breyer and David Souter quite reasonably suggested that if a
single substandard were indeed necessary then a remand to the
Florida court to establish such a standard was in order. But now
the Courts Catch-22 came into play: The Court had itself created
so many delays that the December 12 deadline could not be met!
No matter that the deadline was set only to avoid Congressional
challenges and that the real deadline was December 18.
The rule of law has taken a terrific beating from the Supreme
Court. Basic principles of adjudication have been trampled on:
that the Court should stay out of partisan political fights as much
as possible; that state courts are the arbiters of state law, one of
the oldest principles in our jurisprudence and one that this states
rightsloving Court in particular might have been expected to
honor; that a court doesnt create new doctrines that no one could
have anticipated without giving the affected parties a chance to
comply; that before hearing an argument, courts dont issue interim relief that could prove decisive unless absolutely necessary
to avoid irreparable harmhardly the case here since the results
of the recount could have been set aside if necessary.
In 1857 the Court intervened in a bitter national dispute when

CALVIN TRILLIN

ON LATE-TERM
PRESIDENTIAL TRAVELS
As Nixon neared the bitter end,
He knew what tapes might bring.
So, craving most some cheering crowds,
He headed for Beijing.
Now Clinton knows where he must go.
It isnt Carolina.
For Ireland is the Emerald Isle,
And also Clintons China.

it decided the Dred Scott case. It took decades for the Court and
the country to recover from that. How long will it take this time,
especially if further investigation confirms what we all already
knowthat this election was stolen under color of law?
HERMAN SCHWARTZ
Herman Schwartz is a professor of law at the Washington College of Law.

Partisanship Rules

he Supreme Court decision effectively handing the presidency

to George W. Bush reveals the intensely partisan nature of the
Courts current majority. The Court, to be sure, has always been
political, but rarely as blatantly as today. Nor are there many
precedents for Justices trampling on their own previous convictions to reach a predetermined conclusion.
Chief Justice Roger Taney enlisted the aid of President-elect
James Buchanan in persuading Northern Justices to join the proslavery majority in Dred Scott. Franklin Roosevelt conferred regularly with Justice Louis Brandeis, and Justice Abe Fortas served
as a trusted political adviser of Lyndon Johnson. But never has
there been a public statement as partisan as Antonin Scalias when
first suspending the recounts that the Court needed to insure
public acceptance of a Bush presidency.
If there is a silver lining, it is that the last month suggests an
agenda for democratic reform. First, the Electoral College should
be abolished. The product of an entirely different political era,
when the electorate excluded women, nonwhites and propertyless
males, the Electoral College was created by a generation fearful
of democracy. Its aim was to place the choice of President in the
hands of each states most prominent men, not the voters. It unfairly enhances the power of the least populous states and can produce the current spectacle of a candidate receiving a majority of
the votes but losing the election. At the very least, electors should
be chosen in proportion to the popular vote in each state.
Second, the Florida fiasco should lead to the reform of voting
procedures. As with schools, roads and public services, the wealthiest districts have the best system of voting. The machines used in
poor black precincts of Florida, the Miami Herald demonstrated,
are so flawed that they are guaranteed to produce a larger number
of spoiled or uncounted ballots than in affluent suburban areas.
One can only view with deep cynicism the Court majoritys invocation of equal protection in rejecting a recount. Added to the
Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War, this
language was intended to protect former slaves from discriminatory state actions and to establish the principle that citizens rights
are uniform throughout the nation. The current Courts concept of
equal protection has essentially boiled down to supporting white
plaintiffs who claim to be disadvantaged by affirmative action.
Nonetheless, by extending the issue of equal protection to
the casting and counting of votes, the Court has opened the door
to challenging our highly inequitable system of voting. Claims
of unequal treatment by voters in poorer districts are not likely
to receive a sympathetic hearing from the current majority. But
Bush v. Gore may galvanize demands for genuine equality of

January 1, 2001

The Nation.

COMMENT
participation in the democratic process that legislatures and a
future Court may view sympathetically.
Equally difficult to accept at face value is the majoritys
disdain for the principle of federalism these very Justices have
trumpeted for the past several years. Like the South before the
Civil War, which believed in states rights but demanded a fugitive-slave law that overrode the Norths judicial and police machinery, todays majority seems to view constitutional principles
as remarkably malleable when powerful interests are at stake.
The next time this Court turns down an appeal by a death-row
inmate on the grounds that federalism requires it to respect local
judicial procedures, the condemned plaintiff may well wonder
why his claims do not merit the same consideration as those of
the Republican candidate for President.
ERIC FONER
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University.

Prince Al

fter this, four Gore years? Is the Democratic Party stuck with
Prince Al until the next election? Did Campaign 2004: Bush
versus Gore II begin the moment the Supreme Court issued its
5-to-4 decision? The bad blood created by the disposition of
this election will not disappear quickly. The bitterness of this

rounds losers could even dwarf the profound disappointment of

pro-impeachment Americans. In fact, the balance of emotions
in US politics may well shift. Those who were upset that Clinton
escaped impeachment conviction and who craved revenge are now
able to claim George W. Bushs win as vindication and wallow
in satisfaction; those who welcomed Bill Clintons acquittal and
who saw Republican losses in 1998 as just deserts for the impeachment crusade are now the aggrieved and outraged. And
perhaps theyll feel it is time to seek retribution and justice. As Republicans and conservatives were furiously motivated by Monicagate and impeachment, so the Democrats and their liberal allies
could be moved by Bushs Supreme Courtassisted victory
though its hard to envision Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt
bearing a grudge as fiercely as Tom DeLay and Trent Lott. In
fact, several conservative DemocratsSenator John Breaux and
the Blue Dogs of the Househave already stuck out their hands,
realizing that with Bush in the White House and Congress split,
their deal-making influence can be enhanced.
The Democratic Party as a whole may not forge a unified
(and passionate) anti-Bush front, and that could sharpen the preexisting tensions between the partys progressives and conservatives. Its unlikely that African-American voters in Florida (and
perhaps elsewhere) will forget what many consider to be a Bushled Republican effort to disfranchise their community. Certainly,
(Continued on Page 26)

In Fact . . .
REHNQUIST AND MINORITY VOTERS
During William Rehnquists 1986 confirmation hearings as
Chief Justice, James Brosnahan, a former assistant US Attorney
in Phoenix, recalled on Election Day 1962 receiving complaints
that Republican poll watchers were aggressively challenging
black and Hispanic voters without legal basis. Investigating complaints against a GOP pollwatcher at a precinct in south Phoenix,
he discovered the culprit was Rehnquist. Rehnquist denied to the
Judiciary Committee that he ever harassed or challenged voters.
That does not comport with my recollection of the events I witnessed in 1962, Brosnahan testified. The witness was brought
to the committee by the Nation Institutes Supreme Court Watch.
His testimony has a contemporary relevance in light of the
Supreme Courts ruling that a recount in Florida would deny
equal protection of the law while complaints by minority voters
being turned away from the polls in Florida on Election Day
by the same sort of harassment continue to mount (to read
James Brosnahans full testimony go to www.thenation.com).

REMEMBERING DANIEL SINGER

Daniel Singer, The Nations Europe correspondent, who died
on December 2, will be memorialized by the Daniel Singer Millennium Prize. This will be awarded annually for the best essay
of up to 5,000 words that explores and augments the theses put
forth in Daniels book Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? The
$2,500 prize will be announced every December and will be

administered by the Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation,

which is being incorporated as a 501(c)(3) charity. Contributions
large or small may be sent to Albert Ruben, 285 Central Park
West, Apartment 6W, New York, NY 10024. Checks should be
made out to the Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation Inc.

THROUGH THE REVOLVING DOOR

From Brian DeVore: When attempting one of the largest
takeovers in agribusiness history, a fellow needs some advice
from a savvy insider. So when Joseph Luter III, head of Smithfield Foods, made a bid this fall to buy meat giant IBP, he hired
one of the most inside insiders aroundJoel Klein. Before
his recent resignation Klein was head of the Justice Departments
antitrust division. Although he took on almighty Microsoft, Klein
never managed to swing his trustbusting club in the agribusiness
sector, despite an unprecedented run of mega-mergers. This inaction turned out to be a good career move. In the November 17
Des Moines Register Luter is quoted as saying he hired Klein
to vet his proposal to buy out IBP for an unsolicited $4.1 billion.
Klein told him the buyout would pose no antitrust problems.
Others might disagree. Smithfield is the worlds largest pork
producer and processor, and IBP is the top US beef processor.
A merged Smithfield-IBP would dominate nearly 40 percent
of the hog market alone. According to conventional economic
wisdom, when four businesses control more than 40 percent
of a market, its no longer a competitive one.

The Nation.

January 1, 2001