Some readers have taken issue with the choices of books we proposed about the election of 2000 (see
Election rigging in Harlem?). Basically, their complaint is that some publications that defended the Supreme Court decision
Bush v. Gore didn't make the list.
While this Review makes no pretense of being a "balanced" forum (we strongly support progressive ideas, and fight conservative ideologies) we respect the canons of scientific discussion, and will try to convince those who held different opinions that we have good reasons to think what we think. In this particular case, we have no trouble in admitting that a couple of publications that offer serious arguments do exist. One is Richard Posner's book
Breaking the Deadlock. Posner is a real conservative intellectual, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and one of the most influential American legal theorists. He has been too much controversial a personality to make to the Supreme Court, but half of the members of the Court today wouldn't qualify to be his clerks (to WHICH half of that body we think, we'll let you guess). In any event, his book should have been mentioned, and we apologize for not putting it on the list (not that we subscribe to a single paragraph of his conclusions, of course).
Another volume, this one a "balanced" book, is E. J. Dionne's and W. Kristol's
Bush v. Gore. It offers journalistic commentary (Dionne is also a respected author of political essays, among them the brand-new
Souled Out) but the book has value because it puts together the basics (various legal decisions, not only the last Supreme Court's
per curiam opinion) and also a number of editorial stuff that offers a good deal of insight about the pundits' reasoning during those critical weeks.
While this Review makes no pretense of being a "balanced" forum (we strongly support progressive ideas, and fight conservative ideologies) we respect the canons of scientific discussion, and will try to convince those who held different opinions that we have good reasons to think what we think. In this particular case, we have no trouble in admitting that a couple of publications that offer serious arguments do exist. One is Richard Posner's book Breaking the Deadlock. Posner is a real conservative intellectual, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and one of the most influential American legal theorists. He has been too much controversial a personality to make to the Supreme Court, but half of the members of the Court today wouldn't qualify to be his clerks (to WHICH half of that body we think, we'll let you guess). In any event, his book should have been mentioned, and we apologize for not putting it on the list (not that we subscribe to a single paragraph of his conclusions, of course).
Another volume, this one a "balanced" book, is E. J. Dionne's and W. Kristol's Bush v. Gore. It offers journalistic commentary (Dionne is also a respected author of political essays, among them the brand-new Souled Out) but the book has value because it puts together the basics (various legal decisions, not only the last Supreme Court's per curiam opinion) and also a number of editorial stuff that offers a good deal of insight about the pundits' reasoning during those critical weeks.
