Jack Cafferty seems a bit bitter. He apparently hasn’t gotten over Al Gore losing Florida in the 2000 election.
On today’s CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, guest analyst Rob Sobhani briefly mentioned that the democratic process in Iran would be a bit like if the American Supreme Court chose who would be allowed to run for President:
ROB SOBHANI: Well for your viewers, I think the best example is if the Supreme Court of America decided who’s going to run for office. And that’s exactly what happened in Iran, the council of guardians decided that Mr. Mousavi, Karroubi, Rezaee, and Ahmadinejad were going to run. So in essence, it is not democratic, but the process ends up being democratic. And that’s the dilemma of the United States right now.
Immediately after this, Sobhani was dismissed, and Cafferty introduced. Blitzer wondered aloud if the recent Iranian elections could possibly incite a repeat of the 1979 Iranian revolution – but Cafferty was not satisfied with that historical comparison:
BLITZER: We’ll be watching this story, let’s bring back Jack Cafferty right now. He has the Cafferty file. You know, I don’t know if this is a repeat of 1979, Jack, and you and I are old enough to remember what happened when the Shah was kicked out, or if it’s going to be a Tiananmen Square, if it’s going to be a coup in the Soviet Un – what was the Soviet Union. This is a real fluid situation right now.
JACK CAFFERTY: Well, we’ll have to wait and see, and it’s probably a day or two from developing in such a way as to give us some indication. I thought the observation about the Supreme Court was interesting. The Supreme Court obviously, in this country, doesn’t decide who’s going to be on the ballot, but in 2000 they decided who was going to be President. Remember that?
BLITZER: I do remember that.
CAFFERTY: Yeah. And a lot of people aren’t buying the outcome of these elections in Iran either.
Well now. If one buys Cafferty’s abbreviated interpretation of history, there’s also a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
First, according to the World Socialist Web Site:
“[...]a consortium of major US news organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and CNN [...] presented as its central finding the claim that Bush would have won the election in Florida—by 493 votes—even if the US Supreme Court had not intervened to stop the statewide recount ordered by the Florida high court. It further asserted that Bush would have won by 225 votes if recounts had been completed in the four Florida counties where Gore was seeking them.”
It may be redundant to point out that the World Socialist Web Site is hardly a mouthpiece of right-wing ideals. Less so, but still redundant, is pointing out that the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN were hardly known as cheerleaders for a Bush White House.
Furthermore, Cafferty’s position is in direct opposition to every single Democratic Senator in office as of January 6, 2001. How so? According to federal election law, Congress must count the electoral votes – and if protests are registered by members of the House, the protest must be sponsored by at least one Senator.
No senators, not one, sponsored a single objection of the many House Democrats who rose in protest. And, the keenly attuned Senate wonk might ask, who presided over the joint session of Congress that certified George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 Presidential election?
Why, it was then-Vice President Al Gore, of course.
Cafferty needs to get with the program – just as Al Gore did, mere months after his defeat.
