Jonathan Chait in The New Republic notes that the most recent fact-finding on the Bush/Gore quagmire in Florida isn’t nearly as clear a victory for Bush as folks are saying, for a variety of reasons that seem persuasive. Further:
Of course, even if Bush would have won the recount, that didn’t justify the Court’s decision. At the time, nobody knew who would win the recount, but everybody knew it was Gore’s only chance of victory. The trouble with Bush v. Gore was that it distorted the law to bring about a desired political outcome. (Alternatively, if you believe Bush v. Gore got the law right, as the Journal does, then a subsequent recount wouldn’t “vindicate” it.) That the Court’s intervention may, in retrospect, have been unnecessary hardly exonerates it. You’re no less guilty of burglary if you break into a bank vault that turns out to be empty.
Of course, it’s all moot, in many important ways. Bush is legally president. Nobody except the most radical of his opponents (and I know one or two) would state otherwise. But the failure of the election process to reflect what should have been the outcome is a lesson we have to bear in mind. It’s a lesson that may come back to haunt Bush and future presidents in the decades to come.