The peevish porcupine beats the shrill rooster
The only thing worse than the candidates this year is the shockingly biased liberal press. Plus: A frankfurter geography of America.
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By Camille Paglia
Dec. 6, 2000 | As I file this, Al Gore has not yet conceded, but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon that the rancorous stalemate in the 2000 presidential election might soon be over. While the frame of constitutional government remains unshaken, it has been distressing in the extreme to see what was already a confused, tedious, amateurish and claptrap-filled campaign degenerate into nitpicking legal wrangling, ruthless backbiting, brazen race-baiting and bitter recriminations among American citizens.
Any fair-minded person watching TV in the first two days after the abortive election should have frankly acknowledged that it was the Democrats who first took the low road of mob hysteria and backstage manipulation in Florida. The Republicans countered with an arrogant, presumptuous war mode of their own, but the initial destruction of civility and dignity was not of their making. As a registered Democrat and disillusioned former supporter of Bill Clinton, I voted for Ralph Nader as a protest against the corruption of my party -- which was abundantly on display among amoral Democratic operatives this past month.