On July 15, The New York Times published a front-page story exposing the hypocrisy and brazen dishonesty
of the Bush presidential campaign like none before it.
    Based upon months of painstaking reporting, the article proved that at the very time George W. Bush's lawyers
were making an "equal protection" argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting the strictest standards for
hand recounts of Florida's ballots, GOP operatives across the state fought hard to apply flexible standards to
absentee ballots in different counties.

    The idea was to count even dubious ballots in Republican strongholds, but demand the strict letter of the law
in counties that voted for Al Gore. Lawyers representing Bush also got written instructions for challenging civilian
ballots while arguing for all military ballots regardless of state election law.
    The Times identified 680 questionable votes and interviewed scores of voters, some of whom admitted things
like casting late votes. Ballots with identical flaws were counted in some parts of Florida, discarded in others.

    "The records reveal example after example of Bush lawyers' applying one set of arguments in counties where
Mr. Gore was strong," write David Barstow and Don Van Natta, "and another in counties carried by Mr. Bush."
    What's more, the scheme was run directly from a "war room" that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris
allowed GOP operatives to set up in her office.

    Maybe you recall Harris' indignation at the very idea that a dedicated public servant like her would interpret
Florida's election laws with anything other than scrupulous non-partisanship.
    Then there was Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who high-mindedly recused himself from the vote counting. The Los
Angeles Times reports that at least 95 phone calls went from his office to brother George's Austin, Texas, campaign headquarters during the period. They were probably passing on restaurant tips, Jebbie's spokesman explained.

    Would the 680 questionable ballots have reversed the Florida results? Maybe not, although judges there do
have the power to void all absentee ballots given clear evidence of fraud, in which case, I believe, Gore wins.
But that's no longer the point. It appears that the much-maligned network exit polls were correct; a clear
majority in Florida intended to vote for Gore. Also that Democrats, greatly hampered by the Washington
press clique's determination to revenge itself on Bill Clinton by helping defeat Gore, quite fecklessly allowed
themselves to be rolled.

    Remember how Gore was portrayed as a ruthless Machiavellian who "would do anything to win?"
    Remember how the GOP rolled out Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf to wave the flag over military absentee
ballots, and how Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman rolled over on his back and waggled
his little paws in the air?
    Well, also courtesy of The New York Times, it turns out that even as Judicious Joe was widdling on his belly,
Republican congressmen were enlisting and getting Pentagon help for an e-mail campaign urging late-voting
military types to raise hell about being "disenfranchised," a courtesy not extended to civilians.

    In summary, nobody in George W. Bush's inner circle could have consistently believed that "equal protection"
jive Ted Olson peddled to the 5-4 right-wing majority who installed this feckless twerp in the Oval Office.
    It's a safe bet that Olson and Bush family retainer James Baker knew the score from the start. It's for coming
up with such elegant schemes that corporate clients pay lawyers like them $500 an hour. It'd be interesting to
know if George II himself recognized the sheer unprincipled opportunism of the GOP endgame, a question to
which he has no good answer. One way he's a hypocrite, the other a dunce.

    Fortunately for him, few in our esteemed Washington press corps can be bothered to ask Bush any tough
questions, not with a sex scandal to obsess over. On ABC News "This Week" last Sunday, Cokie Roberts and
    Sam Donaldson sounded like University of Arkansas sorority sisters, groaningly commenting that the Times
story was too long to read before getting back to vicious gossip about U.S. Rep. Gary Condit and The Case
of the Missing Intern.

    Now Condit's hardly our favorite Democrat. A member of the so-called "Blue Dog" faction, he's admired
equally by the National Rifle Association and the Christian Coalition. The Washington Times had him short-listed
for a Bush Cabinet job. An early backer of impeaching Clinton, his big cause has been posting the Ten
Commandments in all public buildings, prompting
    Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer to observe tartly "how easy it is to forget the admonishment
against adultery when it is not prominently posted at every turn in the Capitol."

    Even so, somebody needs to remind these sex-addled fools that it's not a short step from adultery to murder,
it's the longest step in the world.
    Echoing every TV pundit in Washington, a recent Democrat-Gazette editorial berated Condit for not baring
his adulterous soul at once.

    "By the time he began to change his story," we're told, "any trail that might have led to Chandra Levy had
grown cold. By now, it's icy."
    Pardon me, but this is complete non sequitur.

    Like 90 percent of the Chandra Levy coverage, it's sheer speculation.
    But in Tabloid World, see, sex is the single cause that drives all events. All sex is tawdry and mean, and
journalist and reader alike share a make-believe censoriousness about as sincere as the pouts and moans
of porn stars on late-night cable. Like all gossip, it's essentially sadistic, its aim both to titillate and to hurt.

Alas, it's also become the American Way.