10 Years Ago Today

On this night in 2000 I was getting ready to sing in a Christmas concert at Saddleback Church.  About an hour before the show they put a breaking news story up on the auditorium's huge video monitors - Al Gore's concession speech.  After the Supreme Court the night before essentially destroyed any further hope of stealing the presidency from George W. Bush, Gore finally gave up the 36-day fight.

It should have been over when he lost the recounts in early November, but Gore tried everything from getting military ballots thrown out to selective recounts in heavily Democratic counties to steal away the votes he needed to win.  He begged, pleaded, cajoled, lied to and even bullied the courts, election officials, party hacks, and anyone else he thought could bring him the victory he coveted.  Before it was all over 48 lawsuits had been filed by both sides.

And it was all for naught.

Ten years later he has a set of consolation prizes - an Oscar, a Grammy, a Nobel Peace Prize - all for his work in perpetuating the global warming hoax.  Some president he would have been.

Fox News did a great wrap-up of the 36 day saga in a special that ran last Saturday night.  The best written recounting I've read came from Bill Sammon called "At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election".  As you can see from the Amazon box above you can get it pretty cheap, but it's a really good read (I've read it at least five times) and it brings back all the emotions and drama of those days.