Word: stevenses
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But while the court's decision effectively ended the election, the strongly worded opinions of the four dissenting justices revealed a deep divide on the court. In the most dramatic dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said that his colleagues reflected an "unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity...
In the most dramatic dissent, Justice Stevens called the federal questions of the case "insubstantial," and added that the Supreme Court's decision, in siding with the Bush team's appeal, reflected an "unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity" of the Florida Supreme Court.
His colleagues' decision, Stevens said, undermined the credibility of the nation's highest court.
"Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear," Stevens wrote. "It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."
This is where the majority made a serious mistake - a failing the remaining four Justices (Souter, Breyer, Stevens and, most notably, Ginsburg) lambasted in their dissents. The majority chose December 12 arbitrarily, bypassing the more equitable date of December 18 for no reason other than to cut Al Gore's...