November 2004 update: Four more years....
"America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens. With that trust comes a duty to serve all Americans, and I will do my best to fulfill that duty every day as your President.... I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us."
--George W Bush, on winning reelection to second term as President. White House Press Release, "President Bush Thanks Americans in Wednesday Acceptance Speech", 03Nov04. Left: November 2004 election results (The Washington Post, 04Nov04). Top right: Victory photo from official George W Bush reelection website.
"...You're still the one...." (--Shania Twain; John Hall/Johanna Hall ~ *)

"The divide went deeper than politics. It reached into the nation's psyche. The prospect of having either Vice President Gore or Texas Gov. George W. Bush elevated to the presidency left exactly half the country excited and optimistic and the other half concerned or scared...." ("Voters' Views Sharply Divided", The Washington Post, 08Nov00) "An election... has a margin of error. And if the margin is larger than the razor-thin difference of the vote, as seems likely in Florida, then the... president of the United States will be chosen at random." (George Johnson, "Surprise! Elections Have Margins of Error, Too", NYT, 19Nov00, p.WK3) "Nearly three weeks after Election Day, today's developments ensure that a race which, in statistical terms, ended in a tie, is still far from over." (Daniel Wakin, "Gore Lawyers File Challenges to Contest Election Results", NYT on the Web, 27Nov00) By Friday, 08 December 2000, Bush's Florida lead had shrunk to less then 200 votes, and the recounting and Bush's attempts to stop it, continued. "The Supreme Court effectively handed the presidential election to George W. Bush tonight [Dec.12], overturning the Florida Supreme Court and ruling by a vote of 5 to 4 that there could be no further counting of Florida's disputed presidential votes." (Linda Greenhouse, "By Single Vote, Justices End Recount, Blocking Gore After 5-Week Struggle", NYT on the Web, 13Dec00)

"Winning isn't everything; being declared the winner is." (--Apocryphal)

s I begin to create this webpage on the morning after the 2000 United States Presidential election (November 8th, 2000), the outcome is still is too close to call. Whether George W. Bush or his Democratic rival, Al Gore, becomes President, depends on a recount of the votes in Florida, where Bush is currently ahead by less than 2,000 votes out of over 5,800,000 votes cast. (Florida's official certification, on November 26th, reduced Bush's lead to 537 votes....)

If Florida goes to Bush, The Washington Post's vote count (2,909,199 Bush, 2,907,544 Gore, 96,896 Nader, less than 65,000 all others, as of 07:38EST 08Nov00) shows that the votes Ralph Nader diverted from Gore more than account for Bush's "victory". If these numbers hold up, Nader really does deserve the title: "The Spoiler"[fn.85]. And we will all -- trepidantly, in my opinion -- get to see whether Nader's pre-election prediction that Bush's election will reinvigorate the liberal segment of the American people, shall prove true, or whether Bush's election will only mean that things get worse for "the environment", "labor", etc. (Paradoxically, Nader asserted both that there was not much difference between Bush and Gore, and that a Bush election might bring about conservative policy changes that might shake liberals out of their complacency.)

A writer for Newsweek epitomized George W. Bush with the phrase: "smirking arrogance". His peremptory, petulant in-your-face sense of entitlement seems limitless. I fear the word "hubris", which a New York Times article has applied to him, may prove prescient.... George W. Bush seems to be a "spoiled brat" (The Guardian Unlimited, 13Jan02). He appears to be the antipode of a Rockefeller or a Kennedy: a person to whom much has been given, but from whom little of value can be expected. To borrow a phrase from the "free market", I think we can expect only a negative ROI (Rate Of Return) on any investment in this person.

May my negative anticipations each and all prove wrong! May George W. Bush prove himself the greatest, most constructive American president since Yale's first graduate to ascend to the presidency, Theodore Roosevelt! May he, through wise and widely beneficial policies, help all Americans, including not only the "middle class", but even also the poor (for whose brighter future neither he nor his chief opponent spoke during the campaign...)! May he win the hearts and minds of all those, such as myself, who look ahead but not forward to his taking the helm of the ship of state!

If George W. Bush does not, both early and always, clearly earn by good deeds the right to occupy the position he was at best murkily authorized by the election balloting to claim, may the gadflies of progressive social policy -- led by freshman United States Senator Hillary Clinton -- give him and his fellow travellers at least as much distress as they gave Bill Clinton! At least George W. Bush, unlike Ronald Reagan, did not win by a "landslide"....

will only log what Mr. Bush does following the election, to give my fellow Yale '68 classmate (at least I have heard in the news that he is a graduate of Yale College, class of 1968...) a chance to prove he is not a "shrub" -- or, as one might say, to redeem himself and be born again! "Ojala!"[fn.42]

Question: After George W Bush has been in office for 2 years, now (11Jan03), I have a question: What is it about George W Bush that causes everybody to let him get away with things other people could never get away with? How do you explain this?

See hand recounting Florida votes! (O! say can you see...)
 
Read: Bush declares America and himself trifecta winners!
Think about increasing role of socially engineered chance (lotteries, etc.) in American life.

Visit: http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/ Visit: http://www.AlGore.com/ (12May01: Site no longer exists). But: Read Gore's thoughts on Bush (07Aug03). Visit: http://www.RalphNader.com/

Tell me  about Bush's speech problem: mild dysphasia, possibly symptomatic of organic brain damage? Read Slate e-zine's sampler of "Bushisms".   Do you agree  with how the Bush administration is fighting the new global terrorism (2002)? Q: Why  was George W Bush so obsessed with invading Iraq? A: Personal blood feud.   See  George W Bush as Commander in Chief striding confidently after "911" terrorist attack. Learn  about Bush's fraidy-cat Thanksgiving 2003 stealth visit to the troops he sent to Iraq!   See  America's first Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) base (1975)! George W Bush longs for more of this Pyramid scheme....   Show and tell me more  George W Bush (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...)   Q:  "Mr. President, do you support the right to use contraception?"		13Dec2003: Captain Ahab finally gets Moby Dick!

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http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/GeorgeWBush.html Copyright © 2000-2004 Brad McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net 07 May 2006CE v04.01		Loose cannon on the deck of the Ship of State?   Mission accomplished
"Ultimately, the lesson is the system we had in [Florida] caused so many people to misvote that the real result of the election isn't known," said Doug Pardue of USA Today. (Associated Press, 11May01) [But it does seem likely that more people intended to vote for Gore than for Bush.]	Through a glass darkly, while Florida recounts daily further erode his statistically nonexistent lead...
	...but, finally, on Dec 12, after U.S. Supreme Court hands him the election by a 5-4 decision along partisan lines killing all the recounts, looking like banned baseball star Pete Rose (See picture of Rose, below)!

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