Debate between Victor Obasohan and Bryan Reece about the 2000 Presidential Election

OBASOHAN: The 2000 presidential election, -- was it a stolen election? My name is Victor Obasohan along with Professor Reece. I say it was stolen. What are you saying, Professor Reece?  REECE: I'm saying I'm so glad you brought this up, because I'm sick and tired of talking about it. I mean, the President won the election fair and square. You, in particular, and other Democrats keep arguing over and over again that the Electoral College went to Bush, and the popular vote went to Gore. Well, those are the rules. Those have been the rules for 200 years in this country, and you can't play by the rules and then when you lose by the rules, complain about the rules. Everybody knew this ahead of time.  OBASOHAN: This was the most obvious, overt --  REECE: This is what I'm talking about and it's driving me crazy.  OBASOHAN: Here was the Republicans, had people planted in all these places. The Bushes have their brother in Florida as governor, and they have all people surrounding the courthouses, and the Supreme Court, led by Scalia, finally said -- Scalia who goes duck-hunting with the Vice President...  REECE: You're saying Bush controls the Supreme Court?  OBASOHAN: Not control.  REECE: Then why is he getting all these decisions from the Supreme Court that don't support him?  OBASOHAN: Scalia, in the name of the Supreme Court goes duck-hunting with the Vice President.  REECE: Scalia --  OBASOHAN: With the Vice President, they cooked up this deal to say, “Look -- "  REECE: The only thing they cooked up were the ducks. There’s no politics going on in the whole process. Look, can you imagine if we were watching the finals in basketball, and a team lost fair and square. They lost the game. And then they said, "We're protesting it, because we don't like the three-point line. If you take away the three-point line, then we would have won.” And let's go to the Supreme Court, and let's argue this whole thing. Can you imagine how ridiculous something like that would be? That's what the presidential election was.  OBASOHAN George Bush, before 9-11, was the most illegitimate president ever produced.  REECE: How do you support that?  OBASOHAN: It was 9-11 -- over 51 percent by popular opinion of most Americans said that he was an illegitimate president; particularly, from the minority point of view.  REECE: How do you say he was an illegitimate president?  OBASOHAN: He was a -- Professor, you and I talked about this in 2000. You saw the obvious reasons -- where Republicans were all around the place hiring lawyers, going to the Supreme Court.  REECE: The Democrats weren’t hiring lawyers? – Gore had the same number of lawyers. Gore had all his team of lawyers out there watching all these guys stare at the charts going cross-eyed.  OBASOHAN: They counted on the Supreme Court, all along they counted on Scalia and Clarence Thomas, you know, those Republicans on the court. They knew if they could just get five of them they were in.  REECE: Well, look, when they finally did –- when universities did all the calculation, took another 6 months after that, what happened? Bush still wins. How did that happen?  OBASOHAN: The story of Florida is yet to be written. Do you know --?  REECE: You know all those political science professors, they're all liberal, but me. A bunch of liberals out there. They were looking at the whole thing. Hoping Gore would win and they couldn't find a thing.  OBASOHAN: Do you know, Professor Reece, that Floridians said after a newspaper count by a Florida newspaper that Gore had won. That exit polls by the networks actually gave Florida --  REECE: They flipped-flopped back and forth on that.  OBASOHAN: The exit poll was correct, was correct. But the Bushes intimidated the media and said, "No, Florida --"  REECE: The night before the election, the exit polls first called Gore. You recall that?  OBASOHAN: That night, that night the electoral gave it to Gore. But they were intimidated by the Bushes. By the Bushes.  REECE: And then they retracted again.  OBASOHAN: These people, they are trying to be kings in this country.  REECE: Who?  OBASOHAN: The Bushes, the Bushes. They intimidated Florida. The brother was planted there.  REECE: Let me get this straight. The Bushes control Florida. The Bushes control the Supreme Court. The Bushes control the Electoral College.  OBASOHAN: Absolutely. The evidence is clear. The evidence is clear. They are intimidating the public--  REECE: It's as clear as mud. I don't understand this.  OBASOHAN: I don’t understand why – I see average student -- George Bush was able to win the election after losing the popular vote, if not for rigging. This is one of most rigged elections I have ever seen.  REECE: It is clear in the Constitution that the winner of the Electoral College wins the presidency, not the popular vote. If the race was after the popular vote, they would have changed the campaign strategy.  OBASOHAN: Gore won Florida, but the Bushes wanted to make a case adamant. The brother -- his brother, Jeb, actually --  REECE: Where are your sources that say Gore won?  OBASOHAN: Oh, I have insiders. I have insiders. You know, according to my insider, that Jeb Bush actually called George to apologize for not bringing in Florida. Apologized to the brother and said, "I know we lost Florida." He knew something, but later on it was cooked to say, "We can fight this in a lawsuit to make it messy. If I just get five members of the Supreme Court, we’ll win." And that's what he did.  REECE: Well, listen. I know you have "insiders" that gave you the scoop, but I have "outsiders." Let me give you my "outsiders" that tell me that Bush won; the New York Times said Bush won the whole thing; the University of Professor Research said that Bush won; the Supreme Court said that Bush won. I'll put those people up against your insiders any day.  OBASOHAN: The New York Times has been beaten up by the Bushes. Look at -- the media in this administration don’t have the muscle. I don't even know whether we have a free press anymore. They all have succumbed to the Bush machine. It was the machine that won for Bush. There is no way, by all objective standards.  REECE: So what are you saying? Are you saying we should have given the election to Gore?  OBASOHAN: It's not given. Gore won the election fair and square.  REECE: He won the popular vote.  OBASOHAN: In the popular vote as well as the Electoral College votes, but the Bushes --  REECE: Wait. He did not win the Electoral College votes.  OBASOHAN: Well, for those of us --  REECE: You can keep saying it over and over again. It won't make a difference.  OBASOHAN: The truth will come out one day, Professor Reece. I'm sure we are going to be alive.  REECE: It is coming out right now. It's coming right from me. Right now.  OBASOHAN: It’s going to come out later. When there will be an objective reporting that clearly shows that Gore won Florida and it was stolen from him by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court.  REECE: I just don't see it.  OBASOHAN: You don't think the Supreme Court played politics with this?  REECE: No.  OBASOHAN: What was the rush in declaring no more recount?  REECE: You're just saying they played politics on this one, because you don't like what they said. Every time they say something that you like, "Oh, boy, this is not politics anymore."  OBASOHAN: What was the role of the Supreme Court? To say no more elections?  REECE: To make professional opinions based on judicial expertise.  OBASOHAN: It was not professional. There were five Republicans on the court who said, "No more recount. Let's give it to Bush,” because Scalia and company want to do duck hunting.  REECE: We were in a crisis. We were in a crisis. We needed an institution.  OBASOHAN: What crisis? What crisis? You know that America will still be here. We're got going anywhere.  REECE: What were we going to do?  OBASOHAN: We had gone beyond January 20th before in our lifetime. What was the rush to go to --  REECE: Clinton was getting ready to go out of office. We needed a president.  OBASOHAN: But there was no rush. We didn't come to January.  REECE: Can you imagine this county with no president? We'd have to say to the rest of the world, "Sorry. We don't have a president right now. Give us a couple months."  OBASOHAN: If we are a society of law –- oh, so that was the predicate for five Republicans on the court.  REECE: That is a crisis. That is a crisis.  OBASOHAN: America will still be here. We've had caretaker committees before and keep going, but the Republican- dominated Supreme Court said --  REECE: Well, if you're going to say that it was stolen because of politics: Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans, because Democrats voted for the Democrat Gore on the Supreme Court, Republicans voted for the Republicans.  OBASOHAN: There were five Republicans who were instrumental. The vote was -- on the issue of equal treatment there was a majority on the side of voters.  REECE: They said, "Stop counting now. It's time to make a decision."  OBASOHAN: But five Republicans on the Supreme Court said, "Yes," for Bush. The story was over, so --  REECE: Do you think -- Okay. Now, we know from the study that if we would have kept on counting, if the Supreme Court would have held back and said, "You know, let's take three months. Let's let Bill Clinton step out of office --  OBASOHAN: If we are a society of law, why not?  REECE: It still would have been Bush.  OBASOHAN: -- it wouldn’t have been Bush. Bush won Florida by 536 or 37 votes. 500 out of millions. Do you know many Jewish elderly voters voted for Patrick Buchanan, and thought they were voting for Al Gore because of those charts…?  REECE: When somebody votes for the wrong person and someone they didn't intend to vote for, we can't just go and fix that.  OBASOHAN: No, this is just to make the case that they never intended voting for Bush. They knew that Bush was not qualified, but made a mistake in voting for him, thinking they were voting for Gore.  REECE: There's nothing we could do about that. People do that all the time. They make a wrong vote throughout -- we would have to go back through every single ballot in all 50 states and we'd have to contact people saying, "Hey, you didn't happen to vote for the wrong person, did you? Because we need to go change your vote."  OBASOHAN: Even among Republicans, even among Republicans in 2000, most Republicans believed it was a stolen election, but were prepared to sacrifice their own self-esteem and say "Let's give it to Bush."  REECE: It must be fun to pull these little facts out of nowhere.  OBASOHAN: I have people on the inside. I have people on the inside who tell me stories that Bush was what -- I mean, when you put Bush and Gore side-by-side in 2000, who was considered to be the most intellectual, capable of leading America?  REECE: Bush.  OBASOHAN: Most Americans said Al Gore.  REECE: What is Al Gore doing now? He’s running around growing a beard, doing nothing.  OBASOHAN: This pampered kid from Texas, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  REECE: The guy was governor of Texas.  OBASOHAN: A weak governor.  REECE: Governor Richards. She was a strong governor, he whipped her.  OBASOHAN: The governorship of Texas is a weak governorship. He had nothing to do. The power in Texas is with the legislature, not with the governor. This guy had nothing to do.  REECE: Well, getting back to the point here. I know you're trying to change the subject by taking his personal life characteristics.  OBASOHAN: No, I -  REECE: The election was a fair election. It's always been a fair election. It was conducted according to the principles of the Constitution, and the outcome, although an outcome that you don't like, was an outcome in favor of the Republicans.  OBASOHAN: I think the Republicans stole the election. I think the Supreme Court, without -- do you know the Supreme Court actually said this kind of case should not be brought back to them anymore? The society must understand that this is a one-time deal. That they were not going to dabble in this kind the situation anymore. Why do you dabble now, but give us the impression that if we come to this kind of situation again, you will not dabble? Because the Republicans of the Supreme Court wanted to give the election to George Bush and *** Cheney. They wanted to be hobnobbing --  REECE: If that was the case, the Supreme Court would have rolled over the last two terms for George Bush and his administration. They haven't. There have been clear examples where the Supreme Court --  OBASOHAN: They are not stupid and they understand that this is a lame duck for all intents and purposes. He’s not going to run by the election anymore. So they can afford to pitch him now.  REECE: During the first administration. They were not just agreeing with everything.  OBASOHAN: After 9-11, after 9-11, most of the power shifted to the president, because we all rally around the flag during times of emergency, and that's what happened. This president, I guarantee you, would not have won re-election if not for 9-11. What did he say in 2004 running for reelection? All he said was one word: "Terrorism" "Terrorism." And Americans said, "Oh, we like it."  REECE: This president would have won the election again because he understands how the process works. I know it's a nice idea that the public should elect a president, the general public. I am personally in favor of that. But the rule right now is the Electoral College makes the decision. And the Bush campaign structured their whole strategy out of winning the Electoral College votes. If it had been a general election, he would have structured his campaign to go after the general election vote. He would have won that too.  OBASOHAN: This debate it going to continue. The story of the 2000 presidential race is yet to be written. Florida remains one of those key moments in our history as to what really happened. Thank you.